


Want Me, Want Me Not

by DreamsOfSleep



Category: New Girl
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fix-It, Friends With Benefits, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-12 22:08:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 26,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7124257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamsOfSleep/pseuds/DreamsOfSleep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Jess tries to use the sex mug, Nick and Jess realize they are both single and still attracted to each other so they decide to become friends with benefits until they can find real relationships with other people again. </p><p>A fix-it fic for S5 to give depth to Dumb!Nick.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dream A Little Dream Of Me

**Author's Note:**

> My first M-rated multi-chapter fic. I'm not really a smut writer so please leave feedback to let me know how I'm doing and what I can improve on. I'm going to try and hit as many S5 episodes that I can as long as they fit organically into the narrative.

Schmidt and Cece and Sadie and Melissa go to this retro 50s themed cocktail lounge bar downtown. Nick lets himself be dragged along with them as the 5th wheel because he has been working until closing at The Griffin every single Friday for a month and he really needs to blow off some steam.

All the couples end up disappearing into their hidden corners to make out and that leaves Nick drinking alone at the bar. He doesn’t like this bar’s elaborate, pretentious names for their overpriced drinks; he just wanted a regular beer. He orders his regular Heisler even though the bartender gives him a dirty look for not trying one of the bar’s specialty drinks.

They all drove here together in Schmidt’s car but it doesn’t look like the couples will be leaving anytime soon. Nick thinks about calling a cab to go home but sitting alone in the loft on a Friday night still feels more pathetic than sitting here drinking by himself, even though he hates this bar. 

He half listens to the lounge singers. Most of them are bad; it doesn’t help that this isn’t Nick’s type of music at all anyway. He turns away from the stage and tears at the label on his beer bottle, but then he hears her. 

_Stars shining bright above you_  
_Night breezes seem to whisper "I love you"_  
_Birds singing in the sycamore trees_  
_Dream a little dream of me_  


Her voice is rich and smoky. When he turns back to the stage, their eyes meet and it feels like she is singing right to him.

_Say nighty-night and kiss me_  
_Just hold me tight and tell me you'll miss me_  
_While I'm alone and blue as can be_  
_Dream a little dream of me_  


Her eyes are a striking, astonishing blue. They are ringed by a thick line of dark kohl that matches her long raven hair, which falls in soft waves around her face, cascading down her shoulders. She has on cherry red lipstick that makes him want to kiss her to find out if it made her lips taste like real cherries. She wears a sweetly demure periwinkle blue dress that hits her mid-thigh with dark pantyhose. He thinks about what it might feel like to tear them down her legs.

He had to meet her. 

\---

He knocks on her dressing room door and she opens it. He asks for her autograph and he hands her a pen and a scrap of paper. When their hands meet, she looks up at him and it feels like she already knows him. Out of nowhere, he feels himself leaning in to kiss her and she lets him. Then she’s pulling him inside her dressing room and pushing the door closed with him against it, trying to climb up him like a tree. Her hands are all over him. His hands go under her thighs to pick her up and he carries her over to her vanity table. He knocks over her makeup and hair accessories as he sets her down to sit on top of the vanity. 

They continue kissing and his hands run up her back pulling her closer to him. Her arms are looped around his neck, her fingers running through his hair and grazing his scalp the way he likes. His hands slide under her dress to grab the top edge of her pantyhose. She pushes herself up slightly so he can bring them down her legs.

He breaks their kiss. She watches him as he kneels down to roughly drag off her pantyhose the rest of the way down her legs, like he couldn't stop thinking about when she was singing to him, and it’s just as delicious as he imagined it would be. He runs his right hand up one bare leg, from her ankle all the way up to the top of her thigh under her dress as he stands up slowly and returns to her eye level. He grips her thigh firmly with his hand and he can feel goosebumps break out on her skin as he stares intensely into her eyes. Then she’s pulling him back in to kiss her again and undoing his pants. He pushes her dress up and tugs her forward by her hips so she can wrap her legs around him. He hears her breathy gasp as he pushes into her and he’s done for. He comes fast and hard, his vision blissfully whiting out, his breathing harsh on her neck, but she doesn’t seem to mind. When he catches his breath again, he pulls out of her and reaches under her dress to return the favor but she grips his wrist and shakes her head at him. _Next time._

They clean themselves up and adjust their clothes. He kneels down to help her put her pantyhose back on, running his hand up her leg one more time when he’s done so that he can memorize what it’s like to touch her. He stands up and presses a gentle kiss to her mouth one last time. 

“See you at home, Jess,” he whispers to her and she smiles at him. 

\---

The sex mug is what had started it all again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was inspired by this video of Zooey singing ["Dream A Little Dream Of Me."](https://youtu.be/7ThRVUcmSa0)
> 
> I also thought it was an oddly specific detail when Nick mentions thinking about ripping Jess's pantyhose down in "Clean Break." Who even wears full pantyhose nowadays? I liked how that seemed like a really Jess-specific detail for Nick to focus on. 
> 
> This was originally supposed to be a oneshot or part of a Nick/Jess musician AU but I thought it worked better in this story. I like the air of mystery in this fic about whether Nick and Jess know each other and then the reveal that they do and they are just roleplaying and/or hiding their friends with benefits relationship from their friends.


	2. Sex Mug

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick and Jess decide to become friends with benefits.

He remembers standing at the dining room table and listening to Coach talk about making a “clean break” with things and how it had sounded like a good idea to him, cleaning out his life from the past year since he and Jess broke up. 

Jess had thought they were nuts to get rid of all their sentimental attachments but Nick thinks that’s because girls are better with living with all those squishy feelings, crying them out by eating ice cream and watching “Dirty Dancing,” then pushing them into mental compartments in their heads so that they didn’t ruin the rest of their lives.

Winston ended up showing them his weekly cat selfies for some reason because that dude has a weirdly close relationship with his cat and needs everyone to know it. In the background of one of the photos, Nick noticed that distinctive Ass-Strat mug on the hallway table and his eyes flicked up to meet Jess’s and he saw how she was having an internal freakout. She knew that he knew that he just saw their sex mug in that picture that Winston took just last week. His eyes scanned over the table and he saw the actual mug in question just sitting out there in plain sight. He casually reached over to take it and place it in his box before any of the guys noticed and asked about it. 

\---

Back in his room, he took the sex mug out of the box. He put it on his desk and just stared at it for a while. He got that funny feeling in his chest of wanting her and knowing she still wanted him too on some level. He knew it was probably just a moment of weakness for her after Ryan left and she wasn’t really serious about it. He wondered what would have happened if he had seen it though, if she still would have went through with it if he had knocked on her door late at night like the way he used to when they were still together.

He had been so good this past year being Friend Nick, even if that meant they never hung out any more. He was careful to keep his distance because he still wanted to lean in and kiss her whenever she was around him, keeping his distance because he knew that one day he’d slip up and lean in to kiss her without thinking about it, because that’s always his first instinct when she’s in a room. Being a good friend by letting her date and sleep with other guys and try to find Mr. Right, even if it wasn’t him, pretending it didn’t bother him at all even though it felt like someone kept stabbing him in the chest every time one of those other guys touched her the way he used to. 

\---

She had later barged into his room wanting to justify why she had left their sex mug out when they’d been broken up over a year and he really didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to hear about her wanting to use him in a moment of weakness after Ryan left and she was pathetically single again.

Then she asked him about whether he ever still thought about her that way and that felt like a trap. He definitely wasn’t going to tell her he thought about her all the time that way, still. And that he not only thought about putting his hands all over her, but at night he lay awake and pretended she was still his girlfriend and thought about what his life would be like now if they were still together. And he definitely wasn’t going to tell her about how sometimes when he came home really tired from working at the bar, he forgets that they are broken up and turns right instead of left and almost enters her bedroom to cuddle up next to her to go to sleep but he always catches himself once his hand is on her doorknob. 

The safer answer was to say he couldn’t think of anything, that he had a clean break with her and all those messy feelings and images of her were gone. But that still made her mad, so he couldn't help going to her room to apologize to her later and tell her at least some of the truth, the physical stuff anyway, not the mushy girlfriend stuff he thought about which would have made her think he was some psychotic stalker ex and still madly in love with her, even though that last part was true.

Then they were arguing at each other and she had her mad face on and she always had this same argument with him, not wanting to be in a relationship with him but still wanting him to want her while she went off with other guys just like when he was her fluffer for Sam and it just pissed him off so much that he just had to kiss her to make her take back her words. He expected her to push him back and yell at him, but she didn’t stop him. She leaned into it and ran her fingers through his scalp, the way she knew he liked. 

He had pulled back from her and looked questioningly into her eyes. “Are we really doing this again?” he had asked her. 

She had shrugged and said, “We’re both single and we’re both still attracted to each other. Let’s just keep it casual this time; no one else needs to know. Once we get into relationships again we can just stop it and go back to just being friends.” 

“Okay,” he had found himself saying to her. “I guess we’re friends with benefits now, huh?” 

He had leaned in to kiss her again to seal the deal.

\---

And if this is all he gets from her, sex and attraction without all the messy feelings, he’ll take it. It’s not like he’s much good to any other girls anyway while he is so far gone in love with her. She’s the only one that’s stuck around him even though she hurts him. 

_‘I can totally do casual with her,’_ he tries to convince himself and it almost works.


	3. Engagement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Schmidt and Cece get engaged and in the heightened emotions afterwards Nick and Jess start again.

After they decide to be more than just friends, Jess blurts out to Schmidt that Cece still loves him and Schmidt and Cece get engaged. 

When everyone is congratulating the happy couple, Nick and Jess look at each other and think about how that could have been them, but neither of them says anything about it. They don’t talk about all the reasons it isn’t them and just try to be happy for their friends.

\---

That night, Nick sleeps in a sleeping bag on the ground in Jess’s room since Schmidt and Cece are in the room he shares with Schmidt and he hates sleeping on the couch.

In the middle of the night, Jess crawls into the sleeping bag next to him. She straddles him and starts kissing him. Nick knows Jess is probably only doing this because she is all emotional over Cece’s engagement and thinking about the fact that it’s not her getting married and not because she really wants him, but it still feels good for them to do this again. It feels both comfortingly familiar and intriguingly new. 

They’re trying to be quiet so he swallows her breathy sighs into his mouth while she swallows his groans into hers. He helps her get her pajama bottoms off and she does the same for him, pushing them down his legs. She moves on him and he holds her hips firmly against him before running his hands up the sides of her body and under her pajama top to cup her breasts. Her hands disappear under his shirt to scratch deliciously along his chest. She pushes her hands on his chest to get a different angle that makes her breathing stutter and her nails dig into him in a painfully exquisite way. When she clenches against him, she bites down on his shoulder to keep from crying out. He wraps his arms around her back, hugging her close to him and letting her ride it out. 

He continues holding her close to him on his chest after it’s over, his hand stroking the length of her back. She is curled into him with her face buried in his neck and he can feel the rapid pace of her heartbeat against his body before it evens out. After a while she gets off him and pulls her pajama bottoms back on and goes back to her bed. 

It feels like it happened in a dream but he can still feel the warm ghost of her on his body the next morning so he knows it was real.

He’s happy he gets to touch her again like he’s been wanting to do ever since they broke up. 


	4. Friends With Benefits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick and Jess spend the summer together.

Nick’s summer is filled with Jess and he’s happier than he has been in a long time. His best friend is getting married and he gets to stop pretending he doesn’t think about touching Jess. He touches her whenever he gets the chance.

\---

Initially, they sneak into each other’s rooms late at night and try to be quiet while having sex so their roommates don’t hear them. Jess tells him to cover her mouth with his hand, but he always feels bad doing that to her even though she tells him it’s okay and that she wanted him to. He liked being able to hear her, so he preferred trying to find those brief windows of time to be with her in the loft when it was empty and Schmidt and Winston were gone. 

\---

They’re on the roof at 3AM so that they don’t have to be quiet like they do in the loft. He’s sitting in one of the lawn chairs and Jess is straddling him. His hands span her back, pressing her to him as she kisses him. It’s cold out here but she makes him feel warm and he can see all the stars in the sky over her shoulders when she goes to kiss his neck and down his chest. 

He buries his face in her neck, breathing her in. He puts his mouth over her pulse point. Feeling it speed up makes him smile. 

Afterwards they go inside and she makes him hot chocolate before they go back to sleep in their separate rooms. 

\---

They’re in the bar’s back office late at night and she’s sitting on the desk and he’s kneeling on the floor with his head in between her legs. His hands are on her lower back so she doesn’t slide away from him. She’s gripping his hair tightly, painfully but he likes it because he knows that means she’s close. 

Afterwards he wipes his mouth on the back of his hand and kisses her before he drives them home. 

\---

One week during the summer, Nick tells everyone he is visiting his family in Chicago and Jess tells everyone she is visiting her family in Portland and they book a hotel on the edge of the city. They get to spend a whole week together without having to sneak around. Nick likes being able to fall asleep next to her and still wake up in the morning next to her without having to leave in the middle of the night to sneak back to his room. 

\---

They start getting bolder in the loft. There is always the danger of getting caught but the more he is with her, the braver it makes him, so it becomes more of a thrill than a fear. 

\---

It’s quiet in the loft since everyone else has gone to bed but they are staying up late to watch Jess’s recorded marathon of “The Walking Dead.” The throw from the back of the couch is over their legs as they sit close together. 

His hand is in between her legs under the throw as she tries to focus on the show. They’re both staring straight ahead at the screen like nothing is happening. 

Any of their roommates could just walk out at any moment and catch them, but Nick kind of likes that. The nervous undercurrent of excitement runs through his veins. 

He can tell Jess is close by how dilated her pupils are with only that thin ring of blue around her irises and in the shallow, rapid way she is breathing. He twists his fingers just so, so that she lets go and clenches around him. Her hand grips his wrist tightly. He lets her ride it out before he snaps his hand out of her underwear. 

He smiles and leans over to kiss her gently on the lips. 

Then he gets up to get her some ice cream and they go back to watching the show like nothing happened. 

\---

He has her pressed up against the wall in the hallway while he takes her from behind and Schmidt or Winston are going to be home any moment but he couldn’t help himself when she came out of her room in her “look-at-me” skirt. He bites down hard on her shoulder when he comes. 

\---

When they are in the loft standing around in the kitchen or sitting at the dining room table or lounging next to each other on the couch and Schmidt or Winston aren’t paying attention, Nick will run his hand up Jess’s thigh and under her skirt, grazing her skin with his fingers before quickly pulling his hand back. Jess’s breathing will get imperceptibly faster but they won’t look at each other. It feels delicious, like they are sharing a dirty little secret.

\---

One time they have sex in her car and it reminds him of when they were driving to Mexico. She is writhing deliciously under him and he pretends it’s the same night and they are starting their whole relationship again. It made him hate himself afterwards when it was over and he remembered they were just outside the loft and had to go back inside and pretend they were "just friends" again. 

He makes sure that they never have sex or make out in her car again for the rest of the summer. 

\---

When they were dating, Jess created a “sexual bingo” game and he could see the edges of her anxiety about having “vanilla” sex with Spencer, about him being bored with her. 

He had put up with it for a few weeks to make her happy (toys, roleplay, creative positions) but it had freaked him out a bit like “the Captain” had. He was still an old school kind of guy in the bedroom, a no scary props or costumes kind of guy.

One day he had taken her hand when she had taken out the bingo card and told her that he actually kind of liked just being with her without the other stuff, finding it hard to look directly at her face when he said it and looking down at the floor because he was supposed to be a guy and guys were supposed to be all about that and “sexual adventure” and “getting some strange” like Schmidt. But her smile had been worth it and they had had “vanilla” sex afterwards that had been amazing. 

\---

Nick always thought Spencer was an idiot not to take full advantage of Jess when he had her. Nick couldn’t get enough of her. She was always both familiar and new. She could be sexy or sweet or both depending on how the light hit her. She always turned him on no matter how long he was with her. Even at the end when they broke up and he was kind of supposed to hate her like you do with all your exes, remembering all the times he spent with her still made him smile and feel happy inside. 

\---

They said they were going back to being friends after they broke up, but you can never go back to being the person you were after you are in a relationship with someone, not really. You can’t erase the memory of waking up next to them every morning, can’t erase the feel of their skin under the palms of your hands, can’t erase all those intimate details you learn from living next to someone every day, details that no one else knows about that person but you. You can’t take back all those messy feelings you felt for them, can’t turn off your love for them like a light switch. So he and Jess were exes pretending to be friends. They were always coldly polite to each other but they never really spoke to each other even when they were in the same room and they definitely never spent any time alone together. 

So he liked all the sex but he mostly liked just being with her again in a way they weren’t this past year, letting their guards down around each other and letting each other into one another’s lives again.


	5. Best Man & Maid Of Honor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick and Jess become best man and maid of honor. They help plan Schmidt and Cece's engagement party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Events take place during S5, Ep 1: "Big Mama P"

Schmidt asks him to be his best man and, of course, Cece asks Jess to be her maid of honor. 

It feels nice to share this with her even if they aren’t a real couple any more, especially when he sees how happy it makes Jess to do this with him. And it should be annoying that she goes around the loft singing _'It’s the year of us'_ under her breath but he can’t help finding it adorable. 

\---

Schmidt wants to surprise Cece at their engagement party by dancing with that professional Indian dance troupe that Jess hired. Nick tags along for support so Schmidt doesn’t have to learn the dance all by himself. Even though he practices for weeks until his body aches and Schmidt gives him an ‘A’ for effort, Nick is still really uncoordinated. The week before the engagement party, he’s pretty much useless to Jess in the bedroom department since his back is killing him, but she still sneaks into his room late at night to give him back massages with her magic hands. 

When she gets up to sneak back to her room, he has to resist the urge to pull her arm and get her to stay and spend the night with him because he wants to wake up next to her in the morning. 

\---

The day before the engagement party, Jess has to get a full body cast because she’s really clumsy and fell down a flight of stairs for some reason. Nick helps her get dressed, and shower, and feed herself, but he can see it makes her kind of uncomfortable because it starts to feel like he’s her boyfriend again so he backs off and lets Cece do all of that, even though he likes taking care of her and still wants to do those things for her.

\---

He and Schmidt and Winston try to do the whole wedding engagement party without Jess there, but of course it implodes without her and Jess can’t even salvage it when she makes it to the party later. Evidently, Cece never told her mom that she was engaged to Schmidt and the whole Indian dance they spent all that time practicing didn’t even work to win her over like in the movies. Plus, he screwed up picking up Cece’s mom at the airport and Not-Cece’s mom curses him out (he thinks) and throws a drink in his face and storms off, even though he spent all day trying to be nice to her. He knew it was too much pressure and he had screwed it up just like he knew he would. He’s kind of a life-ruiner. 

Jess sees him sitting by himself in the lobby of the dance hall throwing a pity party for himself for letting down Schmidt so she drives herself over on her mobility scooter. She sits by him and holds his hand and makes him feel better by talking about the adventures of “Nick-Knack and J-Day,” her code names for them as best man and maid of honor. She makes him smile in spite of himself, the way she always does when she is next to him. 


	6. Grown-Up Moves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess dates Fred and Nick takes on a more active role as manager of The Griffin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Events take place in S5, Ep2: "What About Fred"

Nick's life is getting a bit more stable now with him being a minority owner of the bar and he still gets to hang out with Jess and touch her any time he wants, even though they aren’t a couple anymore. So life is pretty sweet for him right now. 

\---

Nick can see how proud Jess is of him when he is signing the paperwork at the bar to make his role as part-owner official. He wishes wistfully that he could have done this when they were still a couple. _‘Maybe we wouldn’t have broken up,’_ he thinks to himself. But he pushes that thought to the back of his mind because it feels too loaded and dangerous, especially since he and Jess agreed to just be friends with benefits and everything has been going really well between them. 

\---

Later that evening when he and Jess are sitting next to each other on her bed, she tells him about how her friend Sadie set her up with some guy named Fred and how she doesn’t think it will be anything serious but she just wanted to let him know. He nods at her, keeping his face carefully neutral, and tells her to have fun, thinking about how this is another potential Mr. Right for her. 

\---

They stop sleeping together for a while and he doesn’t get to hang out with her either since she’s spending all her time with Fred. Nick pours himself into working at the bar, trying to distract himself from the fact that she’s dating some other guy that’s not him. He tries out being “Grown-Up Nick” at the bar, the version of him that everyone seems to want him to be. But he screws it up by taking things too far and firing Javier and the entire staff walks out. He tries to make it work with just Schmidt but it’s too much for just the two of them to handle so he goes back to being regular Nick and apologizes to Javier for being a dick and everyone comes back to work at the bar. 

He’s just so _frustrated._ He doesn’t know what everyone wants from him. Everyone is always telling him to grow up but when he tries to grow up, they keep wanting him to be the screwup that they have always known him to be. He’s always the in-between guy that everyone is trying to make fit in a box when he’s struggling to become something else. He’d rather just be Nick the Screwup, the one that’s everyone’s friend, if everyone is going to get mad and hate him for being Grown-Up Nick anyway. 

\---

One night when he and Jess are sitting on the couch and he’s regular Nick again instead of Grown-Up Nick, she tells him that she stopped seeing Fred. She tells him that Fred was a human pile of saltine dust, even though his parents were amazing and had a refurbished farmhouse in Vermont. She said it was really tempting to just continue to date him so that so that she wouldn’t have to go on any more bad first dates, but it wasn’t fair to either of them for her to “settle” for him. 

Nick lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and feels relief flow through his whole body. Another potential Mr. Right gone from her life. 


	7. Jury Duty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess leaves for jury duty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Events take place in S5, Ep3: "Jury Duty"

Jess tells them that she has to go to jury duty for one day. Nick and Jess haven’t been sleeping together or seeing each other for a while, since she just stopped dating Fred, so Nick kind of really misses her. He tells her to make up an excuse to get out of it so she can spend the day with him. But she’s too honest and tells him about all the glories of participating in the political process as she’s walking out the door and leaving him. 

\---

When she’s gone, Nick keeps making up lame reasons to call her, like the fact that Cece left her laundry all over the hallway floor, just so she’ll talk to him. _Smooth, Miller…you don’t sound needy and desperate at all. Jess will definitely never see through this clever ruse._

He makes up reasons to argue with Cece like the fact that she is a “hot slob” because he misses arguing with Jess. But it’s not really the same because Cece can be really scary and hurtful and mean when she wants to be. She calls him mean girl names and makes fun of his stories and his sense of humor and it’s not really fun or gratifying the way it is when he argues with Jess. It just feels really personal and she really bruises his ego. He knows he’s just being a jerk to Cece because he misses Jess and is taking his frustration out on her. 

He’s missing Jess and it doesn’t help that Schmidt’s not around like he used to be either so he can’t hang out with Schmidt and let Schmidt distract him from the fact that he’s missing her. So he is kind of jealous of Cece because he’s lonely without Jess and he's lonely without Schmidt and he’s also kind of jealous of Schmidt and Cece’s relationship and how that’s not him and Jess, even though that’s not Cece’s fault. He and Cece work it out though because they both love Schmidt and Nick is really genuinely happy for them, all his other issues aside. 

So the loft falls apart without Jess there because she’s the glue in their lives even though it’s just for one day. And when she comes home at the end of the day, Nick is really happy to see her again, but then she tells them that she has to go back to jury duty for a month and his stomach drops thinking about the long stretch of days ahead without her. 

\---

He and Jess have sex the day before she has to leave for jury duty again. It happens in her bedroom when they have a 30 minute window when everyone else is temporarily gone for the day. He’s supposed to be helping her pack but they end up arguing about the “organizational” system in her suitcase (him just putting in clothes anywhere they will fit, her having to color coordinate everything) and he ends up kissing her to win the argument, pushing her back onto the bed. 

He’s hovering over her on his elbows and pushing into her, watching her face while she tries to look away from him and isn’t meeting his eyes. He would really have given anything just to have her look directly at him, but he closes his eyes and kisses her hard to get rid of that bad feeling when it still felt so good to do this with her again. 

When they’re done and she goes to get up he pulls on her arm to get her to stay next to him a bit longer and she curls up against his chest. His chest feels tight because he’s really going to miss her. At least when she went to England with Ryan at Christmas, he had his family to distract him in Chicago. Now it’s just him by himself in the loft again where they both live, without her. 

“I’ll miss you,” he whispers to her. 

“I’ll miss you too,” she says distractedly, pulling away from him to start packing again. 

He wants to say something else to her but he doesn’t know what it is so he just starts helping her pack again. 

He kind of wants to tell her he wants more, more than friends with benefits, but he doesn’t want to scare her away again. The first time it was all about the feelings he had but couldn’t tell her about and now it’s all about the feelings he wants to tell her about but can’t. 

\---

Before she leaves she says, “You know you can sleep with other people while I’m gone, right?”

He wants to tell her that he only wants to sleep with her, but he doesn’t want to mess up what they have so he just nods and says, “You too,” even though he wants her to just be his. 

She laughs and says, “Because there are so many eligible bachelors at these things…” and he laughs too even though he knows she’s one of those girls that is really easy to fall in love with so it’s probably true in her case.

He hopes she doesn’t meet someone and change her mind about him and their friends with benefits situation while she is away from him.


	8. Empty Room, Empty Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Jess is gone, Nick turns Apartment 4D into an Airbnb to try and pay for the bachelors' party of Schmidt's dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Events take place in S5, Ep4: "No Girl"

He no longer has Jess as his maid of honor for moral support but he still wants to do a good job as best man for Schmidt while she is away. When that douchebag Todd Ploons texts him about throwing Schmidt a bachelors' party in Vegas, he blurts out that he’s taking Schmidt to Tokyo instead just so Todd can’t win. The look on Schmidt’s face is priceless but then he remembers he has no money so he scrambles to rent out the loft on Airbnb to pay for it.

He feels bad that he can’t call Jess up and ask her about renting out her room first before he does it, since she is sequestered on jury duty, but it feels nice to fill the space where she used to be to distract himself from missing her so much. He thinks Jess would understand about renting out her room to strangers because she understands how important it is to him to do a good job as Schmidt’s best man, especially since he screwed up picking up Cece’s mom at the engagement party. Strangers start riffling through all of her stuff when they stay over, making him cringe. He definitely owes her an old-fashioned for this after she comes home from jury duty. 

\---

He’s trying to deal with missing Jess and trying to be a good best man to Schmidt and everything is all confused in his head and stressing him out. He’s trying to distract himself from missing Jess by running the “boutique hotel” out of their loft but his mind keeps thinking about what his life will be like once Jess gets a real boyfriend again and this “temporary” time without her becomes the rest of his life without her. He knows he and Jess are just friends with benefits and he thinks that he is making everything more serious with Jess than it was supposed to be and he should be going out with other girls, dating and trying to find somebody else just like she is. So he puts on his Single Guy Nick costume, the one where he pretends he’s not in love with Jess like the one he wore before they started dating, and sleeps with one of their renters, who kind of looks like an Asian Jess if you squint, to see if he can get the actual Jess out of his system and stop taking things with her so seriously.

He does it with her in the hallway because doing it in either of their bedrooms feels kind of loaded. But in the middle of the act, he remembers that this is where he and Jess shared their first kiss what feels like a lifetime ago. He squeezes his eyes shut to shove the images down but the memories explode behind his eyes: _him pulling her in close, that initial electric contact of their lips that sent sparks through his entire body from the top of his head all the way down to his toes, his hands traveling up her back and into her hair, her brief hesitation before she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him back, that stunned look on her face, finally seeing him for the first time_. It makes him hate himself and he just tries to finish with her as quickly as possible. Afterwards, he is relieved that Kumiko didn’t read more into their encounter than what it was; it was just sex to her too. 

He knows it was a terrible decision because he isn’t able to ask her for her rent payment afterwards so that pretty much destroys his plan for using Airbnb to pay for the Tokyo trip. Schmidt gets mad at him for sleeping with one of the guests when Schmidt never wanted to rent out the loft in the first place. He expected Nick to be a professional and get shit done since it was his idea and he had promised Schmidt it would be worth it and everything would work out. He knows he let everyone down again…Schmidt and Cece and Winston and Jess and himself...because he’s weak and lonely and not a successful adult. He couldn’t even find a way to pay for the bachelors' party for his best friend in the entire world who’s getting married because he’s _him_ , the life-ruiner, and Schmidt has to call Todd and they both have to go suck up to him so Schmidt can have the bachelors' party he deserves. But then Schmidt rejects Todd and tells Nick that he would be happy with whatever bachelors' party Nick throws for him because Schmidt has his back like he always does and they make up and become best friends again. 

\---

Nick knows he doesn’t deserve the good people who he has in his life. He’s been lazy, taking them for granted. All the reasons Jess broke up with him and she was right to do it. He didn’t deserve her and he didn’t deserve Schmidt and he didn’t deserve Winston sticking by him. He can’t keep being Nick the Screwup the rest of his life. He wants to be able to take care of his friends, to take care of his potential family one day, and not have them carrying him around like dead weight, a burden on their lives. He needs to work harder to become the kind of person they deserve. He needs to get his life together. 


	9. Life Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick considers an indecent proposal from his cousin Bob and his wife Carol and learns about Schmidt's life plan for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Events take place in S5, Ep5: "Bob & Carol & Nick & Schmidt"

His cousin Bob and his wife Carol come to visit and Nick’s worried that they will ask him for money. He loves his family and wants to do anything he can to help them, but he knows they take advantage of that. He’s been doing really well at the bar lately and for the first time he actually has money left over at the end of every month which he can save for something big. He knows he has a hard time saying no to them so he recruits Schmidt for moral support on setting boundaries. Instead of asking for money though, Bob and Carol surprise him by asking him to be their sperm donor and he kind of blacks out for a while after they tell him that. 

\---

It gets him thinking about being a father, about his future family. He’s thought about it before in passing, but his life was always too much of a mess for him to think about it too deeply. He thinks back to the fight he and Jess had about the future.

_She was telling him she was ready for it…moving out and getting married and having kids…and he was ready for it too, mentally anyway, but he couldn’t tell her that because he needed more time to get his life together and get her those things she talked about, all those things that cost money he didn’t have. He couldn’t even get her a hotel room in Mexico, how could he get her a whole lake house? How could he afford to send his kids to college? Or even take them on a family vacation? His life was kind of a mess right now. He counted some days as successful when he could just put on pants. He needed more time to grow up and become a successful adult._

So they broke up because he couldn’t tell her about all that stuff. 

And they said they would be “friends” but he knows what that was code for. Trying to keep each other in one another's lives, but not really. Trying to hold onto something broken because they were both too weak to leave. 

\---

He’s trying to figure out what his life will be like once Jess can’t be there anymore so he thinks maybe he should try out this “kid” thing with his cousins since he probably won’t have kids of his own any time soon. 

He finds out that Schmidt has written a “life plan” for him. Schmidt’s life plan for him should feel invasive, but it’s actually kind of nice. Like a safety net for his life. He kind of wishes Schmidt could be his real husband because he always takes care of him, but they both like girls too much. 

And even though he says he doesn’t want it, he kind of does want Schmidt’s blessing since they’ve been through everything together. Schmidt wants him to fall in love and have a real wife who will give him a real family and that’s what he wants too. But Schmidt still supports him when he says he wants to try out this crazy idea with his cousin because Schmidt is his best friend and he loves him, even though they both know this isn’t how Nick’s life is supposed to go. 

\---

Nick’s already committed to the idea of having a kid with his cousins so when the idea shifts from him just being a sperm donor to him being a “live” donor he still pushes to go through with it. But then he freaks out because he can’t really separate having kids with falling in love with someone and marrying her and having a wife and a family so he can’t have sex with Carol, especially not with everyone yelling at him to create the miracle of life, and it doesn’t happen. 

\---

When it doesn’t work out with Bob and Carol, Nick keeps thinking about Schmidt’s life plan for him. He calls his future wife Maria but he knows she looks like Jess, even though she probably shouldn’t and he should find someone else to be his “Maria.”

He looks at the Chicago Bears onesie that Schmidt got for him and kind of really wants that with someone. _‘Someday,’_ he thinks to himself wistfully. _‘Someday I’m going to be ready for that. Someday I’m going to find somebody who wants that with me too.’_


	10. Reagan, The Anti-Jess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick meets Reagan, The Anti-Jess

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Events take place in S5, Ep 6: "Reagan"

Nick thinks about what he feels with Jess, what Aly makes fun of him for calling “magic,” and wonders what it would be like to feel that with someone else. He thinks he should at least try to find someone else since all this time Jess has spent away from him at jury duty has only made him realize how much he can’t let her go. And he needs to let her go if she is going to go on to find some other guy that’s not him. He knows Aly is right and he can’t keep expecting magic to happen or he’s going to end up alone; he needs to be more realistic about finding a relationship with someone else. 

\---

He ends up having to go to the hospital because even though he knew Aly was right about “magic,” it still pissed him off a little bit that she was making fun of him for wanting that, so he had to do something manly and stupid to soothe his bruised ego that just ended up bruising his actual body. 

As he sat in the hospital chair next to Winston and tried to focus on filling out the insurance forms through the haze of his smush pain, he saw a brunette enter the hospital doors. The longer Jess has been away at jury duty, the more often Nick has mistaken other brunettes for her, like he keeps expecting to run into her on the street for some reason. He blames it on the sleep deprivation from missing her, tossing and turning all night because his body still half expects her to sneak into his room late at night and cuddle up next to him. So of course he notices the brunette right away. 

She is attractive, but in a different way than Jess. Jess is all warm, round edges and sunshine and colorful vintage skirts, while she is all cold, sharp corners and sleek perfect hair and conservative pantsuits. She enters the hospital wearing a smart black business suit and walks with confidence and authority. She is no-nonsense, commanding respect and attention from the hospital staff and the doctors. She appears to be a pharmaceutical rep. Nick overhears that her name is Reagan.

If he could create a person that was the exact opposite of Jess, Reagan would be it. He gets the crazy idea in his head that if he could date this woman, he could get over Jess. Anti-Jess is the antidote to Actual Jess. It feels like Fate to him when he hears that she needs a place to stay, so he runs over and blurts out that they have an empty room for rent and that she should stay with them.

\---

For whatever reason, Reagan takes him up on the offer and comes by to take a look at the loft. Nick is really nervous about making this work. If he can’t make it work with Jess, he needs to make it work with Reagan to get over Jess. He’s trying to psych himself up and pass muster with her. He’s trying to impress her at the same time he is self-sabotaging himself because he still feels that loyalty to Jess and is trying to pull Reagan in at the same time he wants to shove her out of all the spaces Jess should be in. 

\---

Reagan’s astute ability to read people freaks him out. He hopes she doesn’t see right through him and dig into all his numerous issues with Jess and his dad and his inadequacies and the fact that he isn’t a very successful adult. 

It freaks him out even more when he finds out Cece used to hook up with her. It’s like Reagan really is bizzaro-Jess with all these different pinpoints of connection into his life. He wonders if he would have fallen in love with her instead of Jess if he had met her first. Maybe the universe is trying to tell him something. Something like he should be with Reagan instead of Jess since Reagan is everything Jess isn’t. Something like if he can’t make things work out with Jess, he should fall in love with someone who is the complete opposite of her, or at least he should try to. 

\---

Reagan tells him she wants him to get rid of all of Jess’s things from her room so that she can move in. He agrees to do it because every day that he passes Jess’s room and sees all of Jess’s stuff in there without her, it always gives him that sad, twisty feeling in his gut. He also doesn’t want to mix bizarro-Jess’s things with actual-Jess’s things. It makes his chest feel tight seeing not-Jess on Jess’s bed. 

\---

He feels conflicted about Reagan even after she visits the loft, but then she helps Schmidt and Cece stop fighting with each other in a way that reminds him of Actual Jess so Nick thinks that means she’s pretty cool. She gets behind the bar and makes the perfect old-fashioned for him and he thinks he could see himself trying for her. 

Everybody in the loft feels the absence of Jess so they go chasing after Reagan to fill the space she left behind so that they feel less lonely. Nick thinks Reagan agrees to stay at the loft because she is kind of lonely too and that makes him like her more, even though she is still bizarro-Jess to him. 


	11. Heart of Glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick tries to get to know Reagan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Events take place over these episodes:
> 
>   * S5, Ep7: "Wig"
>   * S5, Ep8: "The Decision"
> 

> 
> Chapter title references the Blondie Song ["Heart of Glass"](https://youtu.be/WGU_4-5RaxU)

Reagan moves into the loft and Nick tries to get her to like him but he knows that he is acting like someone with a lame schoolyard crush, the weird creepy kid no one likes with a crush on the cheerleader. He’s just making all his friends uncomfortable and she just ends up avoiding him. 

\---

He’s always on edge around Reagan. He can’t be his normal messy, sometimes gross self around her since she is so magazine perfect all the time. She seems so sophisticated and cool and together, judging the weirdness of him and all of his friends with a detached, slightly bored expression, keeping herself separate from their messy lives. He feels that constant neediness for her approval crawling under his skin.

\---

He can’t read Reagan the way he can read Jess so it makes him act like an awkward manchild, trying to figure her out. He doesn’t like this version of himself very much. Their chemistry is wrong and he’s still trying to force it. 

He thinks he is self-sabotaging himself because he still doesn’t really want to get to know her because it feels like she is pushing Jess out, even though that was supposed to be the whole point. He kind of wants to hold onto the way Jess makes him feel so this whole experiment was kind of a bust.

He knows he’s supposed to be getting over Jess and trying to figure out who he is going to be without her in his future life but he keeps feeling like a part of him is missing and he’s still counting down the days until Jess gets back and he can feel like himself again. 

\---

Reagan has been living with them for a couple of weeks but she is still a blank slate. She keeps to herself and it makes Nick sort of crazy not knowing anything about her. He knows he’s bugging Schmidt and Cece while they are trying to be all lovey-dovey with each other but he can’t help it. Her room is right across from his so Schmidt’s room is the only room he can relax in. Schmidt knows he can get a little obsessive about people so he and Cece try to pull him into a conspiracy theory to distract him by telling him that Reagan wears a wig. He knows what they are doing but he lets his mind get dragged along so he doesn’t have to keep thinking about the fact that he’s still missing Jess and that Reagan doesn’t like him and he can’t even hold an actual conversation with her, let alone be himself around her. She’s just a beautiful shell of a person that he has nothing in common with. 

He and Schmidt and Cece go digging through her stuff and find a bunch of incriminating evidence about her life that makes them freak out, but it all has a logical explanation. Winston is the one that breaks her open, breaks her shell, and they get into a shenanigan with her by pretending to be a Japanese crime family to help her break up with a crazy girl she was hooking up with. She stops avoiding them and she starts hanging out with all of them, letting them in. 

Nick finds out that she’s a messy eater too and that makes her more human and relatable; it makes him smile and feel warm inside feeling that thin thread of connection to her, however frail. 

\---

The more he gets to know Reagan, the more he is reminded of how she is not Jess. 

Jess reminds him of summer. _Of lying on the beach in the midday sun and hearing the surf lap at the shore, of summer barbecues hanging out with his family, of driving around aimlessly on a hot Chicago day with his friends and the windows down and his favorite music on the radio._ She was always approachable and warm from the first moment he met her so he kept letting her in, letting his guard down when he was around her in spite of himself.

If Jess was summer, Reagan was nuclear fucking winter. She was brittlely ice queen pretty with her eyes piercing into his soul and finding all his faults. He always felt uncool around her, stumbling over himself and his words, always on guard in case he did something really stupid that made her hate him (and that list seemed to be pretty long). She reminded him of _running home along gray slushy winter streets with frozen fingers and childhood scrapes on the knee and falling off his bike and bullies pushing him down on the ground._ But maybe a good kind of pain, the pain of growing older and realizing the world isn’t all roses and sunshine so you better grow the fuck up and deal with it.

She makes him stumble over all his words in a way that Jess doesn’t. She makes him feel different and that’s probably a good thing because he can no longer remember who he was before he met Jess. He kind of wishes that feeling wasn’t that she made him feel so dumb all the time though, like he can no longer feel the edges of his personality or his mind, everything that makes up who he is. But she makes him want to try for her just for the fact that she is so Not-Jess. 

\---

When Reagan lays down a sex bet between him and Winston to get them to be more decisive, Nick suddenly finds himself competing to sleep with her and he hasn’t really thought that far ahead. He has to force himself into it, face the reality of where all that attraction and “trying” for Reagan is actually going. Nick is relieved when Winston brings up Cindy De La Garza so that he wins the bet and the decision is made for him. But then Reagan starts toying with him, messing with his head. She plays dirty, whispering to him and reminding him of how Jess whispers to him and he thinks to himself, _‘I should try for her, right?’_ It feels like the thing to do. 

Winston doesn’t know about the whole “get over Jess” plan so Nick feels bad about kicking him out, but Nick really has to make this thing with Reagan work…the whole nine yards. He and Winston end up deciding to put the decision back on Reagan to take the pressure off of them. In the heat of the debate between the three of them, they find out that Winston actually has a crush on his partner Aly, but Winston can’t see it for himself. He and Reagan share a look about it and it’s nice moment for them to share and Nick is relieved that he and Reagan don’t have to sleep together right then.

But after Winston leaves the loft to go chasing after Aly, Reagan calls his bluff about sleeping with her and he can’t do it. Either of their bedrooms is still filled with memories of Jess for him so it feels all sorts of gross to be doing that with someone else and he still doesn’t really know Reagan at all. Instead, he puts on the yellow tracksuit his dad left him, the one that everyone hates and he could never get laid in in a million years, and asks her out for a drink instead. He thinks he should stop putting Reagan up on a pedestal if he wants something real. He should make the effort to get to know her for real instead of continually pushing forward and then pulling back because of some misplaced loyalty to Jess. 


	12. Heat Wave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things between Nick and Reagan heat up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Events take place over these episodes:
> 
>   * S5, Ep9: "Heat Wave"
>   * S5, Ep10: "Goosebumps Walkaway"
> 


Everybody in the loft is sweaty and miserable since they don’t have central air conditioning. The heat is kind of making him delirious so it seems like a really good idea when he comes up with “The Ranch” cooling system and he thinks it will impress Reagan. He likes “fancy-fixing” things so it kind of bugs him when Reagan comes in and saves the day with her expensive AC unit. It also kind of bugs him that Reagan doesn’t let him help her the way Jess lets him help her and then she’s calling him out on his crush for her and it makes him uncomfortable because he hasn’t really nailed down his feelings about her completely yet. He puts the “crush” back on Reagan, accusing her of being into him, trying to put himself back in control so she doesn’t pick up on why he is doing all this other than some amorphous attraction to her. She doesn’t get how it’s bigger than himself, how he is trying to get back control of his life and figure out a way to survive in the future when he doesn’t have Jess, trying to cut the threads of his love to her when she will never love him back.

They end up fighting over the AC like little children and wind up shorting out the electricity. Winston yells at them in his cop voice so they have to go down to the basement together to fix the power. He forgets he’s trying to impress her for a while because he’s really focused on her not electrocuting herself down here, just like he is with any of his friends when he fancy-fixes stuff in the loft, and she likes that for some reason. They hug when the power comes back on and he thinks they are sharing a moment and they’re about to kiss and he still doesn’t know if he really wants to or not but then Reagan spots a freakishly large rat behind him and that ends the moment where they could have pushed into something more. 

The rat kind of saves him, even though it attacks him too. It’s kind of a weird metaphor for his life where bad things that happen to him are actually good things, like when he had that cancer scare and he sat on the beach with Jess and he was able to tell her how he felt about her for the first time without being scared…dipping his toes into the ocean instead of being the guy on the beach guarding the wallets. 

\---

He and Reagan are just sitting on the curb after he blacks out in the basement. He’s just himself, not trying to impress her, just laying himself out there and facing things head on, telling her he likes her and just telling her all the things that he likes about her. He knows he’s still a mess and she’s still way out of his league like Actual Jess but it’s kind of nice to lose himself into an amorphous attraction for another person who’s not Jess and he gets to be a real person who can hold an actual conversation with her and not that weird guy in the loft who smells her hair. 

When he’s saying all these things to her, looking down at his feet away from her, Reagan kisses him and it takes him by surprise. It’s different from kissing Jess in an unpleasant kind of way but he pushes through it and kisses her back. 

Again he’s faced with the reality of not really knowing if he wants her or not but the universe seems to be pushing him that way so he’s trying to go with it since Jess is gone and he feels adrift without her. Maybe Reagan should be what grounds him to his life. Maybe she is the somebody else that he should be putting all his feelings for Jess into and moving on with his life with. 

\---

Then suddenly it gets a lot more real.

The day before Reagan has to leave the loft, she starts making out with him in the hallway. They’re making out and she’s leading him through the front door and into Jess’s bedroom and he can’t…not in there. So he freezes for a few seconds in the hallway before he pulls her into his bedroom, which still feels kind of bad, but not as bad as it would have if they would have done it in Jess’s room. 

But then Jess comes out of her bedroom because she heard his door close and knocks on it and Jess is actually there so it doesn’t happen with Reagan. Nick knows he should feel pissed off at Jess for still being his cooler, but he’s actually kind of relieved that he didn’t go through with it because he felt like he had to sleep with Reagan as the Anti-Jess to get over the real Jess but he knows he would have hated himself afterwards, like he was betraying Jess in some way by sleeping with whoever happened to end up in her room by default. 


	13. Goosebumps Walkaway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reagan is leaving and Nick has to figure out his "goosebumps walkaway" line to make her remember him. Jess returns from jury duty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Events occur in S5, Ep10: "Goosebumps Walkaway"

Actual Jess meets Reagan, her bizzaro self, and they seem to get along but it makes him feel like he is betraying Jess in some way for liking Reagan even though she told him it was okay and seems happy for him.

Nick feels weird about being involved with both of them, even though they both seem cool with it when he blurts out that he was “romantic” with Reagan while Jess was on jury duty. It bugs him that Jess isn’t even a little jealous over Reagan, like it still means nothing to her when he goes off with other girls, even though it still bugs him when she goes off with other guys. 

She is probably over him; he doesn’t even know if she still wants to be friends with benefits with him anymore. They don’t get a chance to talk things out since she drags Reagan with her to find some mystery juror she wants to date. Nick thinks it’s good that Jess found someone else while she was on jury duty just like he found Reagan, but he still feels knots in his stomach every time he thinks about it. 

Her absence bothers him all day.

\---

Since he doesn’t get to hang out with Jess or Reagan and Schmidt, Winston, and Cece went to some dance class, Nick spends the entire day alone in the loft trying to figure out his goosebumps walkaway to Reagan so that she will see him as someone real when she leaves and to make sure that she’ll remember him if she ever wants to try something real with him in the future. He still feels that magnetic pull for Jess but he doesn’t even know whether or not Jess still wants him and he’s trying to be realistic about things. 

He is trying to hold onto Reagan and he wants to say something significant to her just like he said something significant to Jess that made her see him differently. It’s good that Jess dragged Reagan out of the loft because Nick has to shut up the rest of the day to make it work. He knows he still can’t really talk to Reagan and he’s going to mess up what little goodwill he has built up between them if he is around her too long. They’ve done the making out thing but he needs Reagan to see him as a real option and not just as a fuck buddy like he currently is for Jess. It’s like his second chance to get everything right that he got so wrong when he was with Jess. 

\---

The best goosebumps walkaway he can come up with for Reagan is “Sayonara, Sammy” which is kind of lame. He thinks about how he told Jess that he meant “something like that” after he kissed her senseless and it just pales in comparison. He sighs to himself; at least he tried. It was so easy with Jess; he never had to think about it. In fact, not thinking about things is how he got to start things with her in the first place. It still feels way more difficult than it should be with Reagan, but maybe that was the point. All that attraction to Jess was just so easy and it should be hard. Maybe love isn’t easy like Jess told him, maybe it’s just supposed to be really hard until you reach a point where you are together for good and you just have to keep working hard forever to keep all those good things in your life. 

It feels like he is fighting a losing battle trying to hold onto both Reagan and Jess though since he kind of still only wants to be with Jess.

Then Jess finds her juror and she’s real with him and tells him how she feels and Jess always inspires him so he calls Reagan to tell her something real too. Reagan gives the line “Sayonara, Sammy” back to him and it feels like they are sharing something real, even if the line is still totally cheesy and lame.

\---

The entire day, even though he is supposed to be focusing on saying goodbye to Reagan in a big, significant way, all Nick really wants to do is hang out with Jess. Jess doesn’t see it though and he definitely isn’t going to tell her that if she doesn’t want to hang out with him first, but he ends up waiting for her on her bed. Jess seems surprised to find him waiting for her there, but then she looks touched. She tells him her secret juror didn’t work out. They have a nice moment like they used to and he gets to tell her he missed her. This time she isn’t distracted and she tells him she missed him too and he can see it’s true in her eyes so that makes him happy. 

She curls up next to him on the bed and puts her head on his shoulder. They talk about nothing and he makes her laugh and it reminds him of when they were dating and they just used to hang out in her bed on lazy Sunday mornings all snuggled up together. He feels that missing part of his heart fill in again with her there and he starts to feel like himself again.


	14. Letting Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess is stressed out about her job working with Acting Principal Becky Cavatappi and Nick helps her destress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Events take place in S5, Ep11: "The Apartment"

Nick can tell Jess is stressed out about her job. She’s distracted when she’s with him and he can feel the tension in her body, her not relaxing into him the way she usually does. She has that perpetual worry line in between her brows. 

She bought that punching bag to destress but he knows it’s not really helping her because that’s something aggressive people do and there isn’t an aggressive bone in Jess’s body so she’s just yelling a lot and doing a lot of dramatic stage punches but not really letting go.

\---

He tells her to take it out on him in bed. She’s shy about it at first, unsure of herself, but he helps her by whispering things in her ear about _how that school didn’t know how lucky it was to have her and how Becky didn’t deserve to be acting principal and Jess did and how she was the one that showed up and did all the work and cared about the kids even if no one else saw it_ and it gets Jess all riled up so she can finally let herself go. She kisses him hard and bites at his neck and chest and into his shoulders. She pulls at his hair and rakes her nails down his back, making sure she really digs into his skin. She holds his wrists above his head and doesn’t let him touch her until she says it’s okay. All of it is exquisite agony to him. He lets her take all her anger and frustration out on him and eventually he feels her relax into him. All the tension drains from her body and he hugs her to him, wrapping his arms around her back comfortingly.

Afterwards she takes care of anywhere she hurt him with her gentle hands, _all those bruises and bitemarks and angry red claw marks down his back_. She’s deeply apologetic and he can see that she is ashamed of doing that to him but he kisses her hands and tells her he’s glad that he helped her destress. 

He really likes seeing this different side of Jess. He knows sometimes she is too nice to people and they take advantage of her so he really likes seeing her being totally confident and in control of herself. He likes that he was able to give that to her. 

\---

The day after Jess helps Cece move out of her apartment and into the loft, Jess crawls into his bed slightly tipsy in the middle of the night and tells him that she quit her job. 

He hugs her tightly and tells her those clowns didn't deserve her and that he believes in her just like that other time she lost her job and he took her to water massage. 

She smiles at him and then shows him a scrap of paper with the loft’s address. She said that Cece found it while they were packing up her things. She starts reminiscing about the day she moved into the loft. He can still picture her so perfectly in her red sundress on the day he fell in love with her. 


	15. Gavin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess makes out with Schmidt's dad, Gavin. Nick fights with Winston about whose job is harder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Events take place in S5, Ep12: "D-Day"

Jess has to help Schmidt do wedding planning today since Cece got called back to do gas station news. Nick doesn’t get to see her all day so that already puts him in a bad mood. 

When Winston stands him up for lunch at the bar, they get in a big fight about who has the harder job. He hates that Winston still looks down at his job, treating it as less important than his job as a cop. Nick knows being a cop is really difficult and it helps society out a lot and all that jazz, but he works really hard at his job as a bartender too. Plus, he is a co-owner of the bar now. It might not be as glamorous as being a cop but he cares about it and he’s good at it. He hates that Winston always treats his time as less valuable than his. 

He’s been working really hard this past year to get his life together and it would be nice to get a little recognition for that, for growing up and moving on just like his friends. 

\---

Nick knows he is being an irrational jerk by even trying to compare his lowly job as a bartender making schedules and buying beer to being a cop with all its actual real-life dangers, so he apologizes to Winston first. Winston is able to read between the lines and see Nick was lashing out at him because he just wanted his best friend to tell him that he was proud of him for making all these big “grown-up moves” this past year, for making positive changes in his life. Winston tells him that he is “killing it” at his job and brings him the lunch they should have had to it make up to Nick for standing him up. They exchange a look and they both know why their childhood rituals like the “Meat Sandwich” still matter even though they’re adults now and that’s why they’re best friends. 

He and Winston are having a moment when Schmidt barges into the back office trailed by Cece and Jess. He can tell something has really disturbed Schmidt by the look on his face. Schmidt demands alcohol and Cece informs them that Jess made out with Schmidt’s dad Gavin and that ruins the rest of Nick’s day again. 

\---

He’s sitting at the bar feeling the conflict of emotions coursing through his veins. He keeps reminding himself that they are just friends with benefits and he doesn’t have the right to be hurt or angry or upset that she kissed or made out with some other guy, even if it’s Schmidt’s dad (gross), but he can’t help it. He can take it if she tells him beforehand when she goes on dates, like he can brace himself for it, but he feels blindsided by this. He kind of feels like she should have asked him first although he knows her asking him for “permission” to go mack on some other dude is irrational. It makes him blurt out _“Did you like it?”_ to her at the bar and he can feel the eyes of his friends dart between them. Jess looks away embarrassed. “I liked it a little bit…” she says struggling between being honest and trying to protect his feelings and trying not to give away their friends with benefits situation to all of their friends. He feels that familiar stabbing feeling in his chest, in his heart. 

\---

After his friends have left the bar, Nick lets Big Bob close so he can drive down to Gavin’s vineyard in Calabasas. He doesn’t go inside the vineyard’s main building but just sits on the hood of his car in the parking lot looking out at the vineyard as the sun goes down.

The vineyard is a fancy, upscale place compared to The Griffin, which always looks like a dive no matter how much Nick tries to fancy-fix everything.

He wishes he were a guy like Gavin or Russell who could give Jess the entire world, but he’ll always be the guy in the dive bar, even if it’s a really nice dive bar. He gets why Jess would kiss a guy like that, why she would want a relationship with someone like that and not him. He’s just the weird detour she’s taking before she finds the guy she’s really supposed to end up with.

\---

Late at night, Jess sneaks into his room to spend time with him since they haven’t seen each other all day. She’s straddling him and kissing down his neck and onto his chest. He’s trying to stay present but she can tell he isn’t really into it.

“What’s wrong?” she asks him with concerned eyes.

“Just tired I guess,” he responds noncommittally. 

She looks into his eyes and he can tell that she is thinking about Gavin. He thinks she can tell he is still hurt about that even though he tries to hide it, but she doesn’t ask him about it. Instead she asks, “Do you want me to leave?”

He gazes into her eyes and shakes his head. He hesitates for a few seconds before asking, “Can you just be the big spoon for a while?” 

She smiles at him and then kisses him sweetly before replying with, “Sure.”

She gets off him so that he can roll onto his side. She spoons him to her, her arms wrapping around him, surrounding him with her body. He holds one of her hands in his. The ghost of her breath is soft on his neck. He can feel her comforting warmth along the ridge of his spine.

He knows one day he’s going to lose her. He just wants to enjoy the feel of her against him for a little while longer, wants to memorize the way her body fits against his, trying to hold onto the way she makes him feel, the person he is when he is with her. 


	16. Sam, Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess lands her dream job at her dream school, but then she runs into Sam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Events take place in S5, Ep13: "Sam, Again"

Jess comes home one day and tells them that she just landed her dream job at Banyon Canyon, this hippie granola progressive school in town. 

“It’s only on a trial basis right now,” she says shyly, looking down at the ground and downplaying her success, but Nick can see how happy she is. Her whole face glows when she’s really happy and her body emits a joyful energy that fills the room.

“I’m proud of ya, kid,” he says to her and she gives him one of her special smiles that she saves just for him. He wants to lean over and kiss her but all of their friends are in the room sitting on the couch next to them so he can only look over at her warmly, promising to love her up later with his eyes. 

\---

Nick gets sick from eating food out of Jess’s purse (damn kids) so he doesn’t get to see Jess for a while because Schmidt quarantines him in his room. He doesn’t get to hang out with Jess or touch her so he really misses her. He gets needy and touchy-feely when he’s sick so he just wants to hold her hand and have her stroke his hair the way his mom used to when he got sick as a kid. He wraps himself in one of her quilts and it smells like her but it’s not the same as actually having her there with him. 

Schmidt shoves Cece into his room when she gets sick too. He never hangs out alone with Cece so it’s awkward until they bond over that weird kids’ puppet show-slash-North Korean propaganda “Poppycock Palace.” Nick thinks he and Cece are really similar (maybe too similar) so she totally gets why the show is so good in a way that their other roommates don’t, even though the way she blows her nose is the literal worst. They are all hopped up on cold medicine so it starts to feel like they are living in the show after a while and it’s all trippy, but the puppets keep singing about how they’re all friends so it’s cool.

Winston pretends to be sick so he eventually gets shoved in Nick’s room too. Nick and Cece can see he is still crushing on Aly so he is psyching himself out of his coffee date, but they pump him up so that he goes through with it. Nick really wants Winston to end up with a nice girl so that he doesn’t end up as the crazy old cat guy eating birdseed right out of the bag and petting Furguson on his back porch like some weird James Bond supervillain.

\---

Jess comes home and tells them about how her new boss Genevieve is dating Sam. Nick knows Jess wants everyone to like her so he knows that it bugs her that Sam doesn’t, even though he really shouldn’t after what they did to him. Everyone tells her that she should just leave it alone but Jess doesn’t seem to be listening to them. Nick can see the cogs turning in Jess’s head and all her elaborate plans to win Sam over with homemade pastries and goofy songs and collage art liberally sprinkled with glitter and heartfelt apology letters written on stationary with puppies and unicorns. 

It pisses him off that Sam’s opinion still matters more to her than his opinion and the opinion of all of their friends. He’s frustrated because he can’t actually talk to her because he’s quarantined in his room and Cece and Winston are around and he can’t say what he needs to say to her. He hopes she can see everything he can’t say to her in his eyes. 

He wonders if he really got sick from eating those confiscated raisins or his body is just allergic to Sam and it had a sixth sense that Sam was coming back into his life.

\---

Jess couldn’t leave it alone so she ends up inviting Sam and her new hippie boss-slash-Sam's current girlfriend Genevieve to the loft. She tells Nick he has to apologize to Sam for kissing her so that she can get her new job. That pisses him off because everyone told her to leave it alone and he knows Sam is going to punch him in the throat again when he sees him, but he wants to make her happy and get her that dream job so he gets out of his room to talk to Sam. 

Sam looks really different with long hair, a full beard, and weird bohemian clothes. He currently looks more like a relative of Outside Dave rather than the classically handsome clean-cut doctor Nick remembers. They stand outside in the hallway and Sam apologizes to him for punching him in the throat. Nick mumbles something back but he doesn’t actually apologize for kissing Jess. _He can’t._

He knows he should say he regrets it to make everyone happy (Jess gets her job, Sam gets his closure), his relationship with Jess is over and they’ve lied about everything else anyway, but he can’t. He needs it to still have been real, even if they didn’t work out. She made him brave for once in his life and he wants to hold onto that, the version of who he was when he was with her. 

He knows it was shitty to kiss some other dude’s girlfriend behind his back, but in his head, Jess was always his first. Sam didn’t even want to be serious with Jess the first time he was with her so that was his loss and had nothing to do with Nick. 

He still hates Sam so he starts antagonizing him by making fun of his beard and Sam punches him in the throat again. It was worth it not to have to apologize to him though, not to have to take back the most important thing he ever did in his life, the most important thing that ever happened to him. 

\---

Jess makes the four of them (him and her and Sam and Genevieve) do a Feelings Farm to help him and Sam resolve their hostility towards each other. He really doesn’t want to talk to the stupid empty chair but Jess tells him she’ll make him soup so he has to do it. He still doesn’t apologize for kissing Jess, but he is honest with Sam. He tells him, “You know what? I’m not sorry that I kissed your girlfriend. She wanted me to. And it was fun. It felt great. And then we dated for a long time and that was fun. You were out of the picture, not even in her thoughts. It was a whole new thing. We just fell in love with each other, like _crazy love_ …a lot of good memories, a lot of passion, a lot of good sex…” Jess stops him there, but it felt good to say all those true words, even if it was to Sam who hates them both and to Jess’s hippie boss. 

Then he watches this weird hippie version of Sam say he lost his entire personality after he broke up with Jess. Nick thinks Sam has no idea what it’s like to really lose her (they weren’t even that serious), but Jess was still around Nick the whole time after they broke up even if he didn’t really _have_ her, so maybe Nick was the lucky one after all. 

He and Jess watch Sam get dumped because he is an unchill dude who uses words like "bro" and punches people in the throat and was only pretending to be a hippie while Jess's boss is an actual hippie. Nick feels a little bad about that but he is happy that he got to be honest with Sam and Jess got to hear it. Jess still gets her dream job anyway, just like Nick knew she would. 

\---

Jess keeps obsessing about what happened with Sam and about him getting dumped and about him still being angry at her. Cece asks Jess if she cares because Sam is mad at her or if she still has feelings for him and it makes Nick’s heart drop. He wants to believe it’s the first thing so he doesn’t say anything when Jess bakes brownies and brings them to Sam’s house. He knows how much she wants everyone to like her and how she can’t stand when people are mad at her. Sam smushes all her brownies up and tells Jess to get out of his life. Nick hates to see Jess upset but thinks it’s good for her to deal with those feelings of not having everyone like her just like everyone has to at some point in their lives. 

\---

Later that evening when Jess comes back from Sam’s house and Nick’s picking at the tray of smushed brownies in his room with the door slightly cracked, he overhears Jess talking with Cece in her bedroom. She tells Cece that she and Sam “were really great together” and his blood runs cold. Maybe he didn’t know her as well as he thought he did. He knows he’s losing her. 


	17. Backslide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess tries to earn Sam's forgiveness despite his restraining order against her. Nick gets in a feud with Connie, the bar owner of "Presh."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Events take place in S5, Ep14: "300 Feet"

After being sick for a week and not being able to see or touch Jess, Nick finally gets over his cold. He and Jess have sex again in her bed when they are alone in the loft together and Nick feels really content and happy.

That is until Jess tells him that she is thinking about starting a relationship with Sam again.

\---

Nick likes all the sex he has been having with Jess, but one of his favorite parts is actually the part afterwards, having her cuddled up next to him in the warm afterglow. It’s in the warm afterglow that she tells him that she’s thinking about trying things out with Sam again. 

She says it quietly while staring at the ceiling and not looking directly at him. They are both naked under her sheets and his arm is around her. She is tucked against his side, her head resting on his chest.

He has to move away from her. He sits on the edge of her bed facing her bedroom windows with his back to her. 

“You tell me that now and not before we just did _that?_ ” he says through gritted teeth, running his hands angrily through his hair.

Nick knows why she did it that way though. He is always calm and boneless after sex, temporarily letting go of all the anger for the world that lurks inside him just under his skin. All the stress and tension in his life and in his body disappears when he is with her, when he focuses on being present with her in the moment. She wanted to make him agreeable right before she broke his heart again. She had been buttering him up and it made him feel cheap that she couldn’t just tell him this directly. She didn’t want to deal with any of his real feelings, all that messy hurt and anger and frustration, all those unpleasant things actual people feel. 

He knew something felt different today when he touched her, something he couldn’t put his finger on about her. 

She’s still trying to justify herself to him, trying to head off his anger towards her and stop the fight from breaking out that she can feel brewing in the air between them. “We said this would be casual, Nick,” she says to him. “I’m 34, I need to grow up and have a real relationship.” 

He wants to say to her, _‘It was never casual to me’_ and _‘I want a real relationship too’_ , but he knows that would make him an asshole since she’s right and they didn’t agree to that and he can’t just change the rules because he has feelings she doesn’t have, so he swallows it. 

He takes a deep breath in to calm himself and exhales slowly. “I hope he makes you happy, Jess,” he says with his back to her, still not looking at her but down at her bedroom floor.

“Are we okay?” she asks him with concern in her voice. 

“We’re okay,” he says to her. 

He lies back down next to her on the bed, but he doesn’t touch her again. There is an ocean of space between them. 

\---

She’s still chasing Sam even though he just took out a restraining order against her.

Nick has to stand back and let her do it because they are just friends with benefits and she won’t listen to him. They aren’t even sleeping together anymore and it’s like they are back to how they were when they first broke up, like all that good stuff that they had built back up between them recently had never happened. 

He hates seeing Jess throw herself at Sam and become someone he doesn’t recognize, one of those girls that is defined by a guy, desperate for someone to love her, instead of the beautiful, confident, independent woman full of moxie and spirit he knows her to be. People think that because Jess likes girly things like vintage dresses and ribbons and cupcakes and puppies that she's weak but Nick knows she's a spitfire. She's not afraid to wear her heart on her sleeve and she cares about _everything._ She's not afraid to feel things and to share those feelings with other people, to be vulnerable and own it, and to stand strong next to the people she cares about and let them feel everything too. That's what Nick has always admired about her. 

She doesn’t know that she can have anyone, be anyone she wants to be, and she doesn’t need Sam’s approval. She deserves a much better guy than Sam anyway. That bastard Sam, who didn’t even care about her feelings when they first got together and only realized he wanted a serious relationship with her after they broke up when he should have been ‘all in’ from the moment he met her. 

\---

Since Nick can’t say anything or do anything about the whole Jess and Sam situation, he throws himself into working at the bar. It’s what he always does now when he doesn’t want to deal with the rest of his life. At least it’s a better coping mechanism than drinking himself stupid or hiding in his room sleeping his life away like he used to do. 

It pisses Nick off that the hipster bar “Presh” is taking all of The Griffin’s parking spots with their pretentious valet parking and he goes over there with Schmidt and Cece to talk to the owner Connie about it but she just rolls her eyes and dismisses them in a condescending tone.

Schmidt is really impressed with Presh when they go to visit it and he says that The Griffin should be more like Presh, but Nick doesn’t want to change anything. It feels a lot like when people try to improve him, throwing all the good stuff out along with the bad. He feels really protective of the bar since it’s kind of his baby now and it might not be all spiffy and modern like Presh, but it’s his, and he doesn’t need it to become like some stupid fad bar. 

The Sam situation is making Nick all paranoid and turn into Conspiracy-Theory Nick so he starts thinking Presh is attacking his bar when he is really upset about Sam trying to take Jess away from him again and since he can’t fight for her, he can at least fight for his bar. 

He goes into full-on Winston prank mode, spinning out to attack Presh by putting a fish in their air vents. He’s dragging Schmidt down right along with him because Schmidt is his best friend and he can see how much Nick cares about the bar and Schmidt always supports him even when he goes into full-on crazy mode. 

He gets in a fight with Schmidt about defending the bar. He’s pissed that he’s been killing himself at the bar and Schmidt is just picking all his hard work apart so he tells Schmidt he’s going to deal with Presh on his own. But Schmidt has his back like always and at the “meeting of the families” he set up between the local business owners to clear the air and end the bar feud between The Griffin and Presh, Schmidt says all these nice things about investing in Nick and wanting more for him than just breaking even. Nick just really needed to hear that today so he lets Schmidt have valet parking at the bar and it makes Schmidt ridiculously happy. Schmidt starts happy-crying and that makes Nick want to cry too, but he shoves it down because if they’re both crying like little girls, nothing at the bar is going to get done for the rest of the day.

Nick is still jealous over the whole Jess and Sam situation and the whole fight with Presh and its owner Connie sort of reminds him of every romantic movie plotline ever ( _i.e. antagonistic bar owners eventually become friends and then lovers_ ) so he asks her out on a date after they call their truce just to try it out. Connie rejects him though because she is an actual fully-functional adult woman and that makes Nick like and respect her more. 

\---

Later that evening after resolving the whole Presh situation, Nick learns second hand from Winston that Jess and Sam got back together. Apparently, she tried to leave a note on Sam’s truck but panicked and hid in his truckbed when she saw him coming out of the hospital and wound up going through the car wash in the back of his truck. They ended up kissing and going back to the loft where they ran into Winston who tried to enforce Sam’s restraining order. Sam left shortly afterwards but Jess ran after him and they kissed again and made up. The whole anecdote just makes Nick cringe. 

After Winston tells him about his day, Nick makes him those girly fruity drinks he likes even though they always make Winston weird and Nick usually doesn’t like to bring work home. He knows Winston tried damn hard to save Jess because Winston loves Jess too and thinks of her as his family; it isn’t Winston’s fault that Jess makes terrible life decisions when she is around Sam. 

\---

Nick knew that Jess would eventually win Sam over because she’s _her_ but Nick still dies a little inside. Evidently, Sam took out the restraining order against her because he couldn’t stay away from her (barf). She thinks it’s romantic when Nick thinks it’s just Sam being immature and not being able to make up his mind about Jess on his own. Neither of them can see that they are toxic for each other, confusing their sexual chemistry for real feelings when they can barely stand each other, can barely hold a conversation when they are sitting next to each other in the same room. They are just settling for each other because they are both getting older and have that biological clock ticking in them that says they have to find somebody (anybody) to fill the role of “boyfriend/girlfriend” and eventually “husband/wife” and they both find each other semi-attractive and they both sound good enough on paper so why not? It’s not an active choice to love each other, but a passive one, defaulting to each other because it feels easier than to keep going on bad dates trying to find actual, real love. 

Nick has to stand by and watch Sam and Jess get sucked into a toxic relationship with each other again. He can’t say anything without being labeled as the jealous ex, but he’s really just worried about where Jess’s head is at as her friend, even if she doesn’t want to be in a relationship with him. It reminds him of how he backslid with Caroline and how Jess saved him and it kills him that he can’t do the same for her. 


	18. Husband Material

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess asks Nick to pretend to be her husband "Jeff Day" so she can buy a new car from a misogynistic car salesman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Events take place in S5, Ep15: "Jeff Day"

A few weeks after Jess and Sam start dating again, her car dies in the morning when she tries to drive to work. 

Nick can hear her talking to Sam on her phone about it through their thin apartment walls as he lies awake in bed in his room and she paces in the living room. Sam’s at the hospital so he can’t come pick her up and drive her to work; she calls a cab instead. Nick wishes that Jess would just knock on his door and ask him for help but he gets that things have been tense between them since she started seeing Sam again. 

A few minutes after he hears the front door slam as Jess goes down to catch her cab, Nick gets up and goes outside to the street where Jess’s car is parked. She’s been driving that low-rider from Mexico ever since they got back. He pats the roof of the car affectionately. Then he rests his hand on the car and closes his eyes, remembering that hopeful, optimistic feeling of sitting in the backseat with Jess holding her hand as they drove back to their real lives and started their relationship. He tries not to read too much into the fact that the car died. It’s not a metaphor for his relationship with Jess; they are both still in each other lives after all, even if things are weird between them right now. He just pays his respects to all the happy memories he associates with the car before going back inside.

\---

Jess has to buy a new car and he notices how carefully she avoids asking him for help. She goes to all the car dealerships and does all the car buying research on her own. It feels like something they would have done together if they were still friends, a classic “Nick and Jess mess-around” as Winston would put it, so Nick is a bit sad that they can’t do those things together anymore. 

\---

He is sitting at the dining room table with Jess and Sam trying to make nice. He misses hanging out with Jess since things ended badly between them when she started seeing Sam again so he’s trying to be Friend Nick again so he can stay in her life. He’s also trying to keep an eye out for her since he still doesn’t like Sam. He thinks their relationship is going to implode eventually, but he knows he needs to back off and let her make her own mistakes. 

Jess has created a male alias called “Jeff Day” as her fake husband to deal with a misogynistic car salesman. She reads her emails to him out loud to them to gauge their reactions and see what they think before sending them off. 

The key word is _try_ though. They both _try_ to make nice, but he and Sam can’t help sniping at each other the whole time they are at the table and supposed to be helping Jess. He attacks Sam about being a useless pretty boy; Sam attacks him for being short. They both know it’s petty and immature but they can’t help it. Jess wants them to talk it out again like they did at the Feelings Farm but they both want to hang onto their bitterness and resentment towards each other. They are two feelings-repressed dudes in a turf war who would rather take passive-aggressive potshots at each other than work things out like mature adults. 

\---

A few days later, Jess barges into his room and asks him to go down to the car dealership with her posing as her husband “Jeff Day” to sign the car-buying paperwork. He can’t help feeling a little thrill of pride at the fact that she asked him to help her, even though she asked Sam first and he was preoccupied with a surgery at the hospital and she said he was her only other option since the car salesman was only going to be available for the next hour. He always likes helping her and feeling like he is a useful part of her life.

It’s really fun to just banter with Jess again and defuse the tension that has developed between them ever since she told him that she wanted to get back together with Sam. He likes playing make believe a lot. He brings out his Julius Pepperwood disguise again because that guy is awesome at protecting Jess just like that time he protected her from that weird student in her creative writing class, even if that student did turn out to be harmless. Plus, Pepperwood has a mustache which feels like the kind of thing a husband should have. He tries to learn the convoluted husband and wife backstories that Jess came up with, but mainly he savors being next to her again, being by her side, just the two of them. 

He knows it’s a bad idea to get too deep into pretending to be her husband since he’s still trying to shove down his feelings for her and just be her friend again. He should just do what Jess says and sign the paperwork for her, but he can’t help falling hard into the role. He lets himself have the delusion for just one day.

He gets to be affectionate with her, touching her arm, holding her hand, putting his hand on the small of her back when they’re walking together, like he would be if they were actually married. He used to do those things when they were dating but it feels more significant when you’re married, like every time you touch you are sharing all the memories of your lives together through that pinpoint of connection. It makes his heart beat a little faster every time she calls him her husband and he likes the way the word fits his mouth when he calls her his wife. It feels really natural like it’s something he’s been wanting to say for a long time but didn’t know it. He also finds it’s really nice when other people call him her husband or call her his wife, like they all know he belongs to her, like everyone can see they fit together. 

He wants to impress her by negotiating with the car salesman for a better deal, even though she tells him not to. He sneaks off with the car salesman while Jess is distracted, but then he gets in over his head. The negotiation starts to remind him of one of his dad’s scams and it starts to feel more like he’s lying than playing make believe. He becomes SweatBack and screws up the deal so Jess calls Sam and that really stings. Sam comes barging into the car dealership and Nick wants him to back off and let him help Jess the way he always does. Protecting Jess is _his_ territory, not Sam’s. Nick knows he’s in the wrong since this really feels like something a boyfriend would do, but he can’t help it. He's already not spending any time with Jess so this seems like one of the last few things he can share with her so that she keeps him in her life. Jess forces him and Sam to call a truce by driving like a crazy person down the highway in her test car and she does a good job buying the car all by herself without either his or Sam’s help. Nick just ends up feeling embarrassed over the whole situation with Sam and screwing up the deal at the car dealership but he’s also really proud of Jess for taking care of herself. 

So he and Sam agree to stop feuding around Jess because they both care about her and want to stay in her life, even though they still really hate each other and glare daggers at each other behind her back. 

\---

Later in his room that night after Jess buys her new car, Nick pulls out the ring he bought for Jess a few days before they broke up and just stares at it. 

He bought the ring on a whim one day because he had seen it in the jewelry store window and it had seemed perfect for Jess, even though he knew he was pretty far from being ready to be married to her. It had just seemed like a nice dream to have. He hadn’t thought through all the practical details of actually being married though, like Jess forced him to do when they had their breakup fight, so they still broke up. 

He knows he should have sold it at some point. He doesn’t know why he keeps holding onto it, but something about it still makes him feel warm and happy even if it makes him feel sad at the same time so he keeps it buried in the far back of his closet where no one will find it and he takes it out to look at every once in a while when he’s missing her, missing being her boyfriend. 

Now that he reflects back on their day at the car dealership, the memory of her calling him her husband makes his heart clench. He knows they were just pretending and she’s with Sam now, but he can’t help thinking about what it would be like if they were an actual married couple instead of just arguing like one. 


	19. Sweet Dreams (Of You)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess has a sex dream about Nick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Events take place in S5, Ep16: "Helmet"

Nick is in a bad mood because everyone seems to be throwing out his stuff. He knows he’s messy and can be a bit of a hoarder, but he wishes they still respected his things, his space. He sees this as a metaphor for a potential future life where all his friends are married and have kids and have real lives and he doesn’t. A time when they don’t need him anymore, where he’s just disposable to them. So it’s a pretty big deal that they still care enough to ask him before they throw out his stuff, even if it seems stupid and inconsequential to them like his scallop pizza.

He finds Outside Dave with the Chicago Bears helmet he gave Jess that one Christmas they spent together so he has to go confront her about throwing it out. He finds Jess and Cece sitting on her bed surrounded by all the gifts he gave her when they were dating. She talks about throwing it all out to have a “clean mind.” Cece rambles on about how a “dirty room” leads to “dirty dreams” and that gets his attention. He has a stare-down with Jess and Cece to see who will crack and tell him the truth first. Cece is just as bad a liar as he is so she looks down at the helmet and makes Jess blurt out that she had a sex dream about him.

Everything is confusing again because she just told him that she had a sex dream about him even though she is with Sam. He tries not to read too much into it since she still didn’t choose him, still ended up choosing Sam over him, but it makes his heart beat a little faster knowing that he’s still there in her thoughts in that way, even on a subconscious level. 

He can’t help teasing her about it because it’s fun to see Jess get all flustered. Sam isn’t around at the moment so it’s fun to just play with each other like the way they used to when they were in that in-between period after they had made out with each other but before they started dating. It keeps Jess’s revelation from feeling too serious. Cece is there too so it feels a little weird, but it’s probably a good thing that she is there since it keeps everything from feeling too intense like their fight about the sex mug did which had started their whole friends with benefits situation. 

He needles her to tell him all the details of her sex dream because he is insanely curious about it. She does it to make him get off her back so she can go meet Sam, but she also tells him that it’s “never going to happen again.” And even though he knows they are just playing with each other and Cece is there, it still kind of hurt him when she said that, like she was erasing their last link to each other. She might not love him anymore but they’ve always had a natural chemistry and attraction to each other and if one day he doesn’t even have that, he knows he would have lost her for good. 

The actual sex dream is kind of a letdown. Something about him wearing the football helmet while being a chimney sweep in England and them having sex behind an alley. 

\---

It hurts him that he is always giving her all these small parts of himself that no one else gets to see and she still crumples them up like they’re nothing. How can she think the helmet meant nothing when he gave it to her on their first Christmas together as a couple? But he really doesn’t want to get into the meaning behind that right now, so the most he can tell her is that he can’t throw it away. That makes her mad so she does something dumb and puts the helmet on even though it’s a child’s size medium. And of course Sam chooses right then to show up so Jess freaks out and tries to break the helmet so she can protect Sam’s feelings over being threatened that Nick is still a big part of her life. It forces Nick to tell her about the fact that his dad gave him the helmet because he can’t have her break one of his most precious childhood things and have it mean nothing. 

The tone in the room suddenly shifts and becomes really serious between them so he stops teasing her and just tries to help her get the helmet off any way he can while Cece is trying to stall Sam who is literally feet away in the living room. Then Sam catches them in a compromising position in her room, but they act like mature adults for once and Jess tells Sam about her sex dream about him and about the fact that his dad gave him the helmet so she can’t break it. Sam doesn’t get mad or start a fight with her about it, he just looks sad and says that he’s going to meet his parents on his own. 

Nick feels bad because he knows that meeting Sam’s parents was really important to her, but she’s giving up the opportunity to protect all the sentimental feelings Nick has about his dad and the helmet. She doesn’t want to break the helmet but he wants to do it for her anyway because he wants her to be happy and her relationship with Sam makes her happy, even though he hates Sam. Nick knows that he can't keep holding on to her when she doesn't feel the same way about him and probably never will. It’s time for him to get out of the way of her relationship with Sam and let her go. 

He breaks the helmet with a hammer and screwdriver and it feels cathartic. _If you love something, set it free…_

Jess is able to make it in time to meet Sam’s parents and Nick is happy for her.

\---

The next night she frames part of the broken helmet and gives it back to him at the bar. It makes him feel like crying because that is such a “Jess” thing to do. It reminds him of Chicago and how she was there to hold his hand when his dad died and he couldn’t find the words to talk about him, hating him and missing him at the same time. He feels the words getting stuck in his throat about how much it meant for her to do that for him, about how much it meant for her to keep him in her life, so he makes a joke instead to push her away because he knows he can’t keep holding on to her trying to be her pseudo-boyfriend and keeping her from her actual boyfriend. Letting her go so she can be happy without him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is a reference to the Patsy Cline song ["Sweet Dreams (Of You)"](https://youtu.be/oEzT-kjyx-Y)
> 
> _Sweet dreams of you_  
>  _Every night I go through_  
>  _Why can't I forget you and start my life anew_  
>  _Instead of having sweet dreams about you_
> 
> _You don't love me, it's plain_  
>  _I should know I'll never wear your ring_  
>  _I should hate you the whole night through_  
>  _Instead of having sweet dreams about you_
> 
> _Sweet dreams of you_  
>  _Things I know can't come true_  
>  _Why can't I forget the past, start loving someone new_  
>  _Instead of having sweet dreams about you_


	20. Glove City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess has a sex dream about Nick, which makes him reminisce about their relationship and think about what his favorite time with her was in their actual sex life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a fun cut-scene for the mysteriously named "Glove City" encounter that Nick refers to in "Helmet." The main criteria of the encounter being that it had to be good for him but not for her. I also thought it was nice to tie everything back to the initial chapter and we get an excuse to have some more fun Ness interaction again, even though Jess is with Sam in the main storyline.

Most people say dreams are better than reality, that the reality can never live up to your expectations, but for Nick the dreams that his pathetic imagination would come up with always paled in comparison to actually being with Jess in real life.

He tries to think about what the best time for her was. There were so many good ones, but Glove City was one of his favorites for sure. 

\---

He had gone with her to that fancy dress shop so she could pick out an outfit to sing in for her performance at that 50s cocktail lounge bar downtown. He had called the place “Glove City” when he saw it. She had given him an odd look so he had explained that it was like one of those fancy places where ladies have to wear those long white opera gloves. 

She had snuck him into the dressing room so that he didn’t have to get stuck outside in the “boyfriend” chair holding her purse while the seamstresses and fitting room attendants tried to make small talk with him. The dressing rooms were the fancy kind with actual doors from the floor to the ceiling and the insides were all plush like mini living rooms with a vanity and stuffed chairs.

He had helped her get dressed, zipping her up into all those different dresses. Of course, she looked drop dead gorgeous. She always did, but especially in all those old vintage dresses like some glamorous movie star out of time, effortlessly sexy without even trying at all.

He had picked out that periwinkle blue one just for her. He thought it really set off her eyes and the creaminess of her skin and she had said she really liked it. He had stood behind her with his hands on her waist and his chin on her shoulder while she looked at herself in the full-length mirrors. He started kissing her neck, running his hand up under her dress but not pushing things further, just listening to her breathing speed up as he touched her. She never knew why that turned him on so much (it was just her). 

\---

Traditional lingerie and nakedness were nice and all, but what really turned Nick on was seeing Jess being all prim and proper and being the one who got to undo that. Seeing her all covered up and then being the one that got to unwrap her, inch by silky inch, until she was bare before him. She always thought that was a bit strange, but she would indulge him. She never could see that all the things that turned on other guys didn’t apply to him; he could get turned on by her just breathing on him in the right way. Her trying to be sexy was actually a turnoff for him because he could see her trying to fit into other people’s boxes of what they thought was sexy when he just needed her. How he thought she was sexy when she was just being herself, even when her hair was a mess and she had no makeup on and had morning breath or she was standing in the kitchen cooking on a Saturday morning with food all over her clothes because one of her cooking experiments went awry. It turned him on being able to look over at her and just see her, his Jess. 

\---

He had very carefully undressed her (slowly) so as not to mess up her nice new clothes, hanging them back on those fancy wooden hangers and leaving her in her fancy lace bra and underwear. She had pushed him back into one of the chairs and started undoing his pants, biting her lip and going to kneel down on the floor, leaning over him. He could see where things were going and he pressed his hands lightly against her forehead, pushing her back. 

“You don’t have to do that, Jess,” he had choked out. He knew that most girls didn’t like doing that and he never wanted her to do that just because she felt obligated to since he went down on her. 

But she had just given him that beautiful smile and said, “I want to...” 

So he had let her continue and he had held her head gently, his fingers tangled in her hair, while she took him in her beautiful mouth. He was trying to be quiet since they were in a public place, his throat working hard, feeling that familiar chafing in his heart for her. The sight of her there was enough to quickly put him over the edge, his fingers tightening in her hair, coming harder than he had ever come in his life with all those people right outside the door, because it was her doing that to him and wanting to do that to him. She swallowed him down and when she came back up for air she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand before she kissed him and he could taste what she did to him on her lips.

\---

He gets why that wouldn't be her favorite time since she didn’t give him the chance to reciprocate for her, but that is one of his favorite memories of being with her because he could see that she had really wanted him then and it was almost like she was loving him back again. 


	21. Better Than Sex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess has a sex dream about Nick and he tries to think about what her favorite time was in their actual sex life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is mainly another excuse to have some more Ness interaction since the main storyline has Jess/Sam as the main focus and Nick and Jess don't get to interact together as much.

He thinks her favorite time might have been when they had first started dating after they got back from Mexico. 

It had been before they had come up with the sex mug and they hadn’t figured out all the scheduling yet with trying to be intimate with each other. Winston and Schmidt had always been hanging around the loft and they had been trying to be more mindful and discreet over not shoving their relationship into their roommates’ faces after that roommate meeting. He had also been working all those late shifts so he could never get home in time to see her before she had to get up and go to work so they hadn’t had sex in a while and they were both pretty sexually frustrated.

When they finally found some time to be alone together, she had been trying to rip off his clothes as soon as the loft door shut behind Schmidt. He had pushed her back and said that he wanted to make her feel good first. He had been thinking about that a lot, being able to do that to her. He always did like the challenge of making her clench around him and her toes curl, seeing her in her pleasure, head thrown back, making her lose control just for him. When he was able to get her off first, it always made sex better for him. 

He had picked her up, just like their first time when he had swept her off her feet, and carried her to her room. He had undressed her, teasingly slowly, until she was bucking up into him but not letting her touch him, keeping his clothes on and just focusing on her. He kept trying to make her last, teasing her with his mouth and his fingers just up to the point of release and then backing off. He had made her come three times in quick succession, her toes curling, her nails digging into his back, her breathing harsh like she had just run a marathon, her clenching around his fingers, arching up into him with her mouth open, panting, with his name on her lips. 

It had felt delicious looking at her disheveled face afterwards. He had curled up next to her stroking her arm, listening to her trying to catch her breath again, knowing she felt wonderfully boneless because of him. 

Then Winston had come home and she didn’t get a chance to reciprocate for him but he didn’t even care because he was pretty sure that no other guy had made her do _that_ and knowing that was better than sex for him. 


	22. The (Early) Return of High Jess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick finally gets to see High Jess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Events take place in these episodes:
> 
>   * S5, Ep17: "Road Trip"
>   * S5, Ep18: "A Chill Day In"
> 


After Nadia’s bachelorette party, she drops them back at the loft. Everyone is feeling pretty tired and all partied out so they retreat to their rooms to collapse in their beds without speaking to one another.

\---

In the middle of the night, Nick hears a knock at his bedroom door and he gets up to see who it is, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Jess is standing there with oven mitts on holding a tray of brownies still warm from the oven. He raises his eyebrow at her. 

“I thought you might like to see the return of High Jess,” she says to him shyly. 

He grins at her and reaches into the pan for a pot brownie.

\---

They are sitting on the couch watching “Anne of Green Gables” with the volume turned down low. Half the pan of pot brownies is gone and they are sharing a bag of kettle corn. They keep giggling together over nothing. She tells him to put on her glasses so he can hear better and it totally works; they give him supersonic hearing and he can hear all the colors in the television. He gives the glasses back so she can keep the superpower for herself. 

She tells him about trying to steal the breadmaker in the mall and ending up in mall jail. It makes him laugh just because of how ridiculous it sounds. She is trying to be flirty by winking at him but she just ends up giving him a thousand-yard stare or blinking at him erratically with both her eyes. His hands seem to fascinate her. She keeps wanting to put her palm against his palm and giggling about the mismatch in size; he can't help smiling back at her every time she does it. She puts socks on her hands and makes them sing the “Elements” song to him in her Cookie Monster voice. He’s definitely too high to handle that and it all sounds like nonsense words after a while, but he still enjoys the melody. After a while she starts talking about wanting to do crazy things like run down the street wearing nothing but her quilt as a cape, break into The Griffin to do a shot contest, ride shopping carts through the grocery store parking lot. He distracts her by making her a grilled cheese sandwich and a milkshake. She tells him it’s the best thing she’s ever eaten. Eating makes her sleepy so he puts her to bed. 

He tucks her in and gets up to leave but she pulls on his arm.

“Can you stay with me, Nick?” she says in a small voice. “Just until I fall asleep.”

He’s been trying to keep his distance from her since the whole helmet fiasco, trying not to interfere with her relationship with Sam and just being Friend Nick again, but he’s had a rough day with the fight and spewing his mushy feelings about his guy friends everywhere. Being next to her always makes him feel better so he indulges her by getting into bed next to her, even though he knows he probably shouldn’t.

\---

They are laying on their sides in her bed watching cat videos on her laptop. He’s not pushing to touch her, keeping his hands to himself, trying to keep that line there between being her friend and her pseudo-boyfriend. The pot makes her really touchy-feely though. She’s the one that snuggles back into him. She takes his hand and puts it on her hip and he lets her. He rests his head on her side near her stomach and when she laughs he can feel it in his whole body. It feels a little dangerous, a little risky with Sam not being around, but he knows she always makes him weak. He lets himself enjoy it though, enjoy being with her, however briefly.

When she drifts off to sleep he tucks her back into bed, puts her laptop on her desk, and goes back to sleep in his own room.


	23. Crushed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick invites Reagan to go to Schmidt and Cece's wedding with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Events take place in S5, Ep19: "Dress"

Nick is sitting in his room on the edge of his bed just staring at the phone in his hand and thinking about Schmidt and Cece’s wedding looming on the horizon. 

He knows he doesn’t want to end up at the wedding alone trying not to watch Sam and Jess and all the other happy couples dancing and having a great time while he sits by himself at a table and drinks himself stupid. He’s still having a really hard time trying to keep that “friend” boundary between him and Jess. They haven’t been hanging out much, not since the night of Nadia’s bachelorette party, and every time she innocently touches him on the arm or on the shoulder he finds his resolve weakening, wanting to touch her back. She’s not trying to lead him on on purpose (she’s just a really touchy-feely person) but he can’t help falling more in love with her each day when she’s around him, in spite of Sam, in spite of knowing she doesn’t have those same feelings he does. He doesn’t want to say he regrets it, but he knows being friends with benefits with Jess was a bad idea because he lost her and then he got her back (sort of) and now his mind wants to hold on to her even more tightly as _his_ than before they broke up.

Jess isn’t around the loft today since she is rushing to finish fixing Cece’s wedding dress. Schmidt took her with him to his office so she could focus on completing the task. Nick misses her, but he thinks it’s a good thing she’s gone today, because it’s hard for him to think about any other women when Jess is around and he needs to move on. His thumb hovers over Reagan’s number for a few seconds before he hits it and he texts her for the first time since she left the loft.

\---

Nick is on pins and needles all day waiting for Reagan to text him back. He had decided to just send her an innocent text asking about her spring so he doesn’t come on too strong with the invitation to the wedding, but she seems to be ignoring him. It kind of makes sense since they haven’t been in contact at all since they said “Sayanora, Sammy” to each other. Nick thinks she might have forgotten about him or found someone else. He knew that goosebumps walkaway was weak and they hadn’t shared enough real things or had enough chemistry between them to make her think about him again once they weren’t living with each other and seeing each other every day. 

Part of him is relieved, the huge part of himself that is still in in love with Jess, but he knows he should be making an effort with Reagan so he bugs Cece to help him check in with her. It’s nice to be swept up into the mechanics of it, giving him something to obsess on and do all day instead of missing Jess. 

\---

Of course, he always spins out when he gets too deep into one of his obsessions, so he spends $200 on burner phones trying to create fake aliases and make Reagan text him back, unsuccessfully.

Finally, Cece convinces him to just be real with Reagan and he just texts her as himself and asks her to go to Schmidt and Cece’s wedding with him. Direct and to the point. 

Reagan finally texts him back and tells him she knew it was him texting her from all those burner phones in that dry, sarcastic way she has. She tells him, “I would love to come to the wedding, but I can’t because I have to work. I miss you.” _Rejected._

It’s really embarrassing because Cece’s there, but hearing her read Reagan’s text out loud makes him really emotional. He can feel his throat get tight and the burn of tears building up behind his eyes. Cece makes some feeble attempts to spin Reagan’s rejection as a success but she is really bad at comforting people because she isn’t Jess. She has all the sensitivity of an undertaker and she keeps asking him if he’s going to cry and if he needs tissues. She finally leaves his room so he can fall apart in peace. 

\---

He’s a little upset about Reagan (rejection always hurts) but he’s mainly upset that he keeps putting himself out there and the universe keeps rejecting him. He feels like he’s screaming at the universe that he’s ready for it… _the wife, the kids, the whole nine yards, the whole rest of his life_ …but the universe keeps telling him he doesn’t deserve those things. 

He wants love, real love, being able to love someone who will love him back and he doesn’t know why he can’t find it. It’s like there is something about him that keeps pushing people away from him. Maybe he’s just not capable of being the guy that women see themselves ending up with, even though he’s worked really hard this year to make himself into somebody that other people want to be around, somebody that other people want to keep in their lives. Everyone’s still leaving him. He’s the guy who always shows up, but no one will ever show up for him. 

And he loved Jess more than he ever loved anyone and he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to just go and find someone else, just switch her out for someone else, when he still just sees her in his head. He doesn’t want to go on any more dates with other people. He wants to skip to the next part. He wants to be able to wake up next to someone who he knows and loves completely, someone he is completely comfortable with that makes him feel like he’s putting on clothes warm from the dryer. He wants to come home to someone that makes him feel safe and warm and loved, to belong to someone who loves him back. 

But all he can do is watch everyone else fall in love around him and wish he could have that too. He’s just not the guy and he’ll never be the guy.


	24. The Ties That Bind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick confronts Schmidt's dad Gavin. Jess meets Sam's best friend Diane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Events take place in S5, Ep20: "Return To Sender"

Nick is still feeling the sting of Reagan’s (i.e. the universe’s) rejection so he’s been thinking about family a lot lately. He loves his biological family back in Chicago, but he wouldn’t say he’s particularly close to them since he doesn’t see them every day, no matter how much he tries to call home and keep in touch with them. Nick thinks your real family is the one you choose, so the loft is his “real” family. He’s lost both Jess and Reagan and he isn’t particularly interested in dating again to find someone new so eventually he’s going to lose everyone in his family as they get into relationships, get married, have kids, and move on without him. He feels like it’s something he should prepare himself for and he should just try to enjoy this time when everyone in his family is still around, the people he loves most in the entire world.

\---

Today is Sam’s birthday so everyone in the loft (minus Nick) is getting ready to go to Sam’s birthday party. 

Schmidt, Winston, and Sam are sitting around the dining room table hanging out in the afternoon before the party. Winston tries bringing Sam into the “family” by gifting him with a birdshirt. Sam pretends to be polite about it when he opens the gift, but it is obvious to everyone but Winston that he really hates it. When Nick hears about it, he is offended on Winston’s behalf. When someone in your family gives you a motherflippin’ birdshirt, you wear the motherflippin’ birdshirt. He still wears the birdshirt Winston gave him sometimes because he knows it makes Winston happy when he sees it, even though Nick doesn’t really want “bird bros” to be a thing. It’s just something you do for your family; you do stuff that makes you uncomfortable because it makes the person you care about happy. And what if Jess gives Sam something he doesn’t like? Is he going to shove it in the back of a drawer somewhere or pretend to lose it like Winston’s birdshirt? It makes Nick irrationally angry but he swallows it down because he’s trying to be supportive of Sam and Jess’s relationship now and he can’t go around feeling like he wants to punch Sam in the face all over again.

Jess has been making Cece quiz her all day on Sam’s life – his family, his friends, the minute details of everyone in his life. Nick watches her trying to fit in the box of being Sam’s girlfriend. He shudders as he imagines a time when Jess will move out of the loft and get swallowed up into the rest of Sam’s life, leaving them all behind. At least for now, he knows that she will always come home at the end of the day. Plus, Cece is living in the loft now so that’s another link tying Jess into his life. Nick still has time left to spend with her. Or at least until Schmidt and Cece decide to get their own place, but Nick will cross that bridge when he comes to it.

\--

Nick doesn’t go to Sam’s birthday party because him pretending that he and Sam are best buds would just be awkward for everyone. He spends the day alone in his room working on his zombie novel to pass the time. Schmidt said he had wedding stuff to take care of so he couldn’t go to Sam’s birthday party either. Nick hasn’t seen him all day so when he thinks he hears Schmidt in the kitchen, he goes out to investigate and runs into Schmidt’s dad, Gavin.

Nick hates Gavin, partially because he made out with Jess, but mostly because he hurts Schmidt every time he chooses to drop back into Schmidt’s life. Schmidt pleads with him to make nice with Gavin though so he sucks it up and does it because he loves Schmidt and knows having a relationship with his dad is important to him. He ends up hanging out and drinking wine with Schmidt and Gavin at the loft’s dining room table. He bonds with Gavin over his homemade liquor and finds himself liking Gavin in spite of himself. That’s probably because Nick secretly wants all dads to like him though, even shitty ones like Gavin who never show up and who have made out with the woman he loves.

\---

After spending the day together, Gavin says he has to go home to change but will meet Schmidt for dinner. Nick knows what a kiss-off feels like though; it feels just like the last time he saw his dad in person. His dad told him that they were going to see a baseball game together and ended up bailing on him, not even saying a real goodbye. He knows all about dads that don’t show up and he doesn’t want Schmidt to get hurt all over again like the numerous times Gavin has hurt him in the past, so he has to go out to confront Gavin in front of the elevators and try to convince him to become a guy that shows up. After Nick’s heartfelt speech to Gavin, the elevator is really slow, so that damages the impact of his speech, but Nick still hopes it made a good impression on Gavin. 

Nick is feeling all these things about his family and how they’re drifting apart and he just needs to know that they’ll be okay once they stop hanging out with him and he’s not in their life anymore to be the guy that shows up.

\---

Nick goes to meet Schmidt in the restaurant where Schmidt said Gavin was meeting him. He sees Schmidt sitting at a table all by himself with that same heartbroken look on his face that Nick has seen numerous times before, an hour after Gavin said he would meet him there. Nick buys him a milkshake like old times and Schmidt thanks him for being a guy that shows up. He and Schmidt have a moment that gets too intense and they have to do that dumb thing guys do whenever they can’t handle their feelings and list off stereotypical manly things so that they don’t end up crying like little girls in the middle of the restaurant. 

Nick thinks about how people are just the worst sometimes and the world just sucks in general, but then Gavin actually shows up and redeems Nick’s faith in humanity. Gavin offers to let Schmidt have his wedding at his fancy vineyard, the kind of place Schmidt deserves to have his wedding instead of at a slaughterhouse, so Nick forgives him and lets himself be happy for his friend. 

\---

Later that evening, they sit on the couch in the living room as Jess tells them about Sam and his best friend Diane from med school. Evidently, Diane had been in love with Sam for over 10 years but Sam never knew. Diane told Jess about it and showed her a 10-year-old letter that she sent to Sam about her feelings that he never received. Jess told Diane to tell Sam how she felt because she is a diehard romantic and can’t stand in the way of other people’s happiness. Sam rejected Diane though and told her “their time had passed” and stayed with Jess. 

Nick looked at Jess and then down at the floor, smiling ruefully to himself. He thinks he knows exactly how Diane feels. 


	25. Vows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Schmidt and Cece have their rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding. Nick has to help Schmidt write new vows once Schmidt's flash drive with his old vows gets destroyed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Events take place in S5, Ep21: "Wedding Eve"

Nick and Jess are still best man and maid of honor so they end up spending a lot of time together before the wedding planning the rehearsal dinner. He’s more mindful than ever of keeping the “friend” line there so he makes sure to limit how much they touch, pulling back from touching her even though he wants to and trying not to be too obvious about keeping himself out of her reach whenever she is next to him. He also tries to make sure they are never in the loft alone together. Keeping things safe, avoiding temptation. But he still really enjoys being in her presence, still.

\---

The rehearsal dinner goes off without a hitch and Nick remembers what a great team he and Jess make. Sam even compliments them on the event, which makes Nick feel really good since he knows how happy it makes Jess to see them getting along. He surprises Jess with walkie-talkies to keep things running smoothly on the big day and it makes him laugh when she insists on using their code names, Nick-Knack and J-Day.

He and Jess are both sleep-deprived due to planning the rehearsal dinner all week, but Nick is used to that from working late shifts at the bar. What Nick is really suffering from is couples’ fatigue. _Schmidt and Cece are getting married. Winston and Aly just celebrated their one-month anniversary together. Jess and Sam seem to be getting really serious._ He’s focusing really hard on just being happy for his friends and being the perfect best man for Schmidt, but he can’t help feeling that familiar loneliness creeping up his spine and squeezing at his lungs, at his heart. He has to turn away when any of the couples are too affectionate with each other, staring down at the floor or looking at something in the middle distance. It makes him feel like he can’t breathe, the beginnings of a panic attack seeing everyone drift away from him and leave him on an island by himself out in the universe. 

\---

After the rehearsal dinner Nick collapses gratefully into his sleeping bag in Schmidt’s room, building up his strength to face the onslaught of romance tomorrow and feeling the nervous anticipation of excitement at the prospect of seeing his best friend get married.

Just when Nick is about to drift off to sleep, Schmidt wakes him up in a panic, freaking out because the flash drive with his vows on it is missing. He and Winston help Schmidt look for it, but it turns out that Winston stepped on the flash drive and broke it while they were practicing the hora earlier in the evening. Winston is useless since he is obsessing over how he told Aly that she would “make a beautiful bride some day” and Schmidt barely remembers a sentence from the novel-length vows that he spent nine months writing, so it’s up to Nick to help Schmidt write completely new vows.

\---

He and Schmidt are right in the middle of brainstorming about his vows when they hear Jess calling for a game of “True American” out in the living room. He and Schmidt really don’t want to play since it’s really late and they barely have enough time to rewrite Schmidt’s vows as it is, but then Cece uses her bride card so they have to. He tells Schmidt to play “fast, sober, and then get back to work.” When he hears those words leave his mouth, he can feel Past Nick hating him through the space-time continuum.

 _‘What happened to you, man? You used to be cool.’_ Past Nick grumbles at him. 

_‘I grew up, kid,’_ he finds himself responding back in his mind.

He feels like some high school kid’s lame chaperone as he runs around and unsuccessfully tries to stop his friends from getting Schmidt drunk while they all run around like maniacs and play “True American: First Ladies’ Edition.” Coach unexpectedly pops up during the game and they all throw up fingers on their foreheads to decide who gets him on their team. Nick feels a pang in his heart when Sam and Jess get chosen to go behind the Iron Curtain. 

\---

He has to walk past Sam and Jess being all cozy behind the Iron Curtain as he trails Schmidt, who ran to the bathroom to throw up. He tries to get by them as quickly as possible. He avoids looking at Jess’s eyes as he cuts between them but can’t help catching Sam’s eyes. _‘Hi,’_ he finds himself saying to Sam, trying not to be awkward, but all three of them feel the déjà vu of that other night of True American. He can’t look at Jess or they will both know that Nick’s thinking about kissing her, about That Kiss, and Nick will mess up her and Sam's relationship again. That night is a visceral memory that continually plays in his head, no matter how much he tries to convince himself to just be Friend Nick. 

\---

In the bathroom, Schmidt is trying to sober up to write his vows but he can’t even spell his own name. Nick feels guilty for not being a good enough best man for Schmidt. Nick is a lot more sober than Schmidt, which has never happened before, but being drunk actually lets Schmidt get out of his own head and get his Big Idea to write his vows. 

“All I want to do is make her happy,” Schmidt says with conviction.

Nick gets a flash of Jess in his head when Schmidt says that but he pushes it away and helps Schmidt write the rest of his vows on a roll of toilet paper in the bathroom. 

\---

Once he and Schmidt get out of the bathroom they hear Jess say that Schmidt’s mom and her girlfriend are getting married. Schmidt has another freakout at that revelation, which makes everyone run out into the living room. Once Schmidt calms down he gives a heartfelt speech in which he is finally able to accept Susan into his family as his second mom. They all circle around and toast the newly engaged couple with champagne. It’s pretty much the perfect ending to a crazy night.

Nick is really happy for Schmidt and the fact that his best friend in the entire world is getting married tomorrow and growing up, getting everything he ever wanted.


	26. Choices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Schmidt and Cece's wedding day finally arrives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Events take place in S5, Ep22: "Landing Gear"

When Nick wakes up, Schmidt is gone. 

After going room by room and trying to convince himself that Schmidt is just hiding somewhere in the apartment, Nick feels his body break out in a cold sweat. He realizes that Schmidt is truly missing. He slaps himself on the forehead. _‘You idiot! You had one job!’_ he berates himself. He couldn’t even get his best friend down to the altar on his wedding day. 

Schmidt finally calls him and tells him that he got on a plane at LAX headed for Portland so he could bring Cece’s mom to the wedding.

“Cece is crushed that her mom is not coming, and I can’t take a vow that all I care about is her happiness and not try to do something about it. I know you’re a terrible liar, but I need you to lie to Cece. You can handle this, Nick.”

\---

He recruits Jess to help him lie to Cece about Schmidt’s whereabouts so that they don’t ruin her big day. He knows he is a terrible liar and the phrases that come out of his mouth lose all meaning as he says them. 

“I believe in you,” Jess says in that optimistic way only she can and he is able to calm down and actually tell a straight-up lie for the first time in his life. He is able to lie to Cece and tell her that Schmidt is asleep in a normal human voice. Nick is really happy about making Jess proud of him and he tells her his idea of asking Dr. Sam for a sleeping pill to slip to Cece so she doesn’t find out about Schmidt. 

That makes Jess quietly tell Nick that Sam dumped her and that catches him off guard. He definitely wasn’t expecting that. She tells him that Sam was in love with his best friend and Nick smiles ruefully at that. Nick totally knows that feel, but Sam was a douche about it, stringing Jess along and telling her that he chose her and that he wanted something serious before unceremoniously dumping her the night before her best friend’s wedding. "He’s out of his mind," Nick blurts out and something unreadable passes over Jess’s face before it gets shoved away.

 _‘We’re both single again.’_ Nick can’t help how his heart beats a little faster at that realization. The clouds part and the universe invites him in. The door is open and he has an opportunity to try for her again. He can’t help remembering Cece’s first wedding, and saying “all in” to her before running away to Mexico together. He feels that yearning to say “all in” to her all over again. He knows that he shouldn’t, but he’s just so tired of fighting it, fighting his love for her. He has to give it one more chance…a Hail Mary pass to let Jess know how he feels, that he wants something real, to get her to see him differently all over again.

If this doesn’t work, at least this will be their last hurrah together before he loses her. They’ll have one great night where he dances with her and they get drunk and they’re happy together without the rest of their lives in the way. He swallows. If she says no to him and he loses her, he has to move out of the loft and he can’t ever see her again. He has to let her go for real. It’s a high risk, high reward plan, but she’s worth it. She’s the type of girl a guy would come back for. 

He tries to be casual about it. “So we’re both going solo to the wedding....How about if we go together? For old times’ sake.” He loves the way her face lights up at the prospect. He wants to tell her something else but then their heads both turn when they hear the loft’s front door open and Reagan is there.

Nick feels the door of opportunity with Jess slam shut again, the universe telling him it’s over with Jess and to move on. He’s blindsided by Reagan and becomes dumb Nick again, rambling on because both Jess and Anti-Jess are there sharing the same space again. Reagan being there makes him feel awkward, flattered but also kind of dumb. He did ask her to go to the wedding with him and she’s saying yes to him now instead of rejecting him so he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to feel. He’s getting emotional whiplash, feeling like he wants to cry because he really did want to go to the wedding with Jess, but the universe seems to be telling him no…that Reagan is the one he should be with, that he can’t have Jess but he can still have something real with someone else. 

\---

Nick doesn’t have much time to deal with his emotional conflict because Schmidt is calling him and telling him that he is going to be stuck on the tarmac for hours and to stall the wedding party until he can make it back, so Nick has to compartmentalize everything to deal with that. But of course he screws it up and Cece overhears about where Schmidt is and how he isn’t there for the wedding. Luckily she thinks it’s romantic though so it just becomes another one of the stories to add to their love story, the love story of Schmidt and Cece. 

\---

Everyone gets dressed to go to the vineyard for the wedding. Nick feels his heart skip a beat when he sees Jess come out in her red bridesmaid dress for the first time. She looks drop-dead gorgeous in that red dress, even more beautiful than the day he fell in love with her. He can’t tell her that though or he thinks he’s going to try to kiss her and he hasn’t told her how he feels yet to make it real. It would just end up being a dick move since she just broke up with Sam and is probably feeling vulnerable. She doesn’t need him coming in and starting confusing things between them again. 

So he puts on his Friend Nick costume and tries not to keep staring at her all night like a creep. 

\---

They are all running around trying to stall the wedding party by getting everyone drunk. Nick keeps seeing Jess out of the corner of his eye, making it hard for him to concentrate, so he keeps spilling the wine whenever he goes to serve the guests. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do. The universe is telling him to choose and he looks at Jess and he looks at Reagan and he thinks that he’s not being fair to either of them.

He can’t keep doing this. 

It’s not fair to Jess. He can’t keep rescuing her and being the problem ex hanging around and chasing away all her potential Mr. Rights. She keeps running to him every time she has a problem with any new potential boyfriend when she should be running to the guy she’s actually dating to deal with it. 

It’s not fair to him. He can’t keep waiting around and putting his life on hold, hoping she’ll change her mind one day and love him back when he already knows he’s not good enough for her. He might be doing a lot better this year with the bar and everything but he’ll still never be the guy who has everything planned to the last detail, the guy she deserves. 

He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and chooses Reagan. _‘All in,’_ he thinks to himself with trepidation, going for something real with Reagan like the universe wants him to. But then when he asks her about going for The Big “R”, a real relationship, he can see her pull back from him, surprised and not in a good way. He’s back to square one again. He knows that look: She wants him, but not really. He’s the weird detour again until she finds something better, so he backtracks to give her an out. He knew he wasn’t supposed to have either of them. He feels sweat pooling on his back and his face growing hot with embarrassment from having misread her. Feeling that vise on his heart from having the nerve to reach for something more with someone else. 

\---

Cece’s mom shows up to the wedding while Schmidt is still stuck on the tarmac so Schmidt tells them to start the wedding without him. Through the magic of technology, Schmidt is still able to be there though. He gets to do all the wedding festivities on the plane through Skype and he even gets to hear Nick deliver his kickass best man speech. 

\---

Nick is sitting by himself at one of the garden tables after his speech when Jess comes down to sit next to him. He’s still feeling bad about Reagan’s rejection so he commiserates to Jess like he always does. Jess offers to talk him up to Reagan because she is a literal saint. Nick looks into Jess’s earnest face and thinks to himself, _‘It’s really over between us, isn’t it?’_ He looks over at Reagan. _‘Okay, Universe, you win. If Jess can convince Reagan to go for a real relationship with me. I’ll do it. I’ll let her go.’_

He watches Jess talk to Reagan standing at the bar across the room from them. Reagan walks over to him at the bar and _yes_ is in her eyes. _‘Of course,’_ Nick thinks to himself ruefully. _‘Of course, she is the one that can convince Reagan to try for me.’_ He takes Reagan’s hand and leads her to the dance floor. He puts his hand on the small of her back and they do a lazy waltz across the floor. He tries to focus on her and he hopes she doesn’t notice how carefully he isn’t looking over at Jess in her red dress.

\---

Schmidt never makes it to the wedding because his plane finally gets off the tarmac and takes him to Portland. When he exits the elevator at the loft looking bedraggled and beaten down, he is surprised to find his groomsmen waiting for him. 

They have the real wedding ceremony for Schmidt and Cece right there in their apartment where their entire life began, surrounded by all their closest friends and family just like it was always meant to be. And it was perfect.

\---

Nick gets a moment alone with Jess during the wedding festivities in the loft. He has to thank her for convincing Reagan to try for him. He is still in disbelief over it and blurts it out to Jess because they are always honest with each other. 

“I’m freaking out, Jess. I can’t believe it. I mean, why does she want to be with me? It doesn’t make any sense. You of all people know that I’m just the weird detour you take before you find the guy you want to be with. I basically just help women realize that they could do a lot better…”

For some reason that seems to really upset Jess. She yells at him, “Stop it, Nick! I'm tired of you being the only person who doesn't see how incredible you are.” 

She’s telling him he’s incredible and there is something in her face that confuses him, but he can’t keep doing this with her if she doesn’t love him back so he tells her that he’s going off with Reagan for three months. He said yes to Reagan, yes to spending three months away from the loft with a woman he barely knows, something that terrifies him, so that he can save Jess from himself and his need to love her when she doesn’t love him back. The space will be good for them and Reagan said yes, she said she wants a real relationship with him the way Jess doesn’t, not any more anyway, and Jess can go on and get herself a real relationship too.

He has to go back to being Friend Nick, _just_ her friend. He swears to himself that when he comes back he’s going to help her find a good guy, her Mr. Right, so he can finally let her go and she can be happy, even though that means he probably doesn’t get to see her anymore, maybe only on holidays if he’s lucky. 

The hora line comes in to collect them and he grabs her hand, hanging on to her, even though it hurts him because he still needs her in his life. And he probably always will. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that was the longest thing I have ever written. (26K freaking words, man!) Thanks for sticking with me until the end!
> 
> I had to keep the bittersweet ending from the show since my goal for this fic was to fix the canon details with Dumb!Nick in S5. Stay tuned for my alternative happy ending fic though; I'll have that posted shortly!
> 
> I love hearing from my readers! Let me know what you thought about this fic (good or bad) in the comments. Also feel free to leave fic requests. I still have "Orphans" and my Pepperwood AU in the works (plus a few other things) so let me know what you guys would like to see me update or write next. I'll get around to all of them but I'm just interested in hearing what you guys are most interested in reading.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [All In Again, And For The Rest Of Our Lives](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7209311) by [DreamsOfSleep](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamsOfSleep/pseuds/DreamsOfSleep)




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